531 Quotes by George Saunders

Suddenly absurdism wasn’t an intellectual abstraction, it was actually realism. You could see the way that wealth was begetting wealth, wealth was begetting comfort – and that the cumulative effect of an absence of wealth was the erosion of grace.

As a writer I’m essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.

What a powerful thing to know: That one’s own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.

I would have done anything to stop the hitting. Anything. So much for human dignity, I think, a few whacks in the ribs and you’re calling a fat guy God and eating soil at his request.

Why was she dancing? No reason. Just alive, I guess.

Even the nuns went racist after the convent was reappraised and it seemed their pension fund was in jeopardy.

Great sobs choked his utterance. He buried his head in his hands, and his tall frame was convulsed with emotion. I stood at the foot of the bed, my eyes full of tears, looking at the man in silent, awe-stricken wonder. His grief unnerved him, and made him a weak, passive child. I did not dream that his rugged nature could be so moved. I shall never forget those solemn moments – genius and greatness weeping over love’s lost idol.

I read Rand and thought, “I want to be one of the earth movers, the scientific people who power the world. I don’t want to be one of these lisping liberal artsy leeches.” So I was working against my actual abilities.

But hopeful dear us, we forget.