All I really know in nonfiction is that when I come home, I've got all these notes and I'm trying to figure out what actually happened to me. I usually kind of know what happened, but as you work through the notes, you find that certain scenes write well and some don't even though they should. Those make a constellation of meaning that weirdly ends up telling you what you just went through. It's a slightly different process, but still there's mystery because when you're bearing down on the scenes, sometimes you find out they mean something different than what you thought.
George SaundersIn a certain way, we're always toggling back and forth between the absolute and the relative, if that makes sense.
George SaundersIf you want to explore a political idea in the highest possible way, you embody it in the personal, because that's something that no one can deny.
George SaundersHumor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.
George SaundersI was, not an altar boy, but a reader of the Epistle, and I walked in on a nun and a priest furiously French kissing when I was in seventh grade. I walked in, saw it, and went, "No way," backed out, composed myself, and went back in, and it was still going on. And the experience of seeing that was actually very deep.
George Saunders