531 Quotes by George Saunders

When I write I know that I’m going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.

None of it was real; nothing was real. Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear.

I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.

We are ready, sir; are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we can do.

I was a big and un-ironic fan of Dear Abby when I was a kid in Chicago. I think I sort of internalized her. So I have this inner Abby: cranky, proper, folksy yet scathing, with a beehive hairdo. But that’s my issue.

If you haven’t read you don’t have the voice. The lack of voice eliminates experience.

Someday, I’m sure, dreams will come true. But when? Why not now? Why not?

My idea about collections is that you write as hard as you can for some period and what you’re really doing during that time is hyper-focusing on the individual pieces – trying to make each one sit up and really do some surprising work.

Plus he’d been raised on a farm, or near a farm anyways, and anybody raised on a farm knew you had to do what you had to do in terms of sick animals or extra animals – the pup being not sick, just extra.