Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it... Err in the direction of kindness.
George SaundersMy 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.
George SaundersWhatever happens, we can deal with it if we admit that it's happening and so on. So to be comfortable with what is - that is a real superpower.
George SaundersEvery writer knows that when you're imitating somebody - you know, you're sounding like Faulkner - you're doing pretty good, but your life in Hoboken isn't Faulkneresque. So you get that kind of shortfall between the actual experience of the writer and the things he's hungry to express and the voice itself.
George SaundersI think if someone could demonstrate to me that fiction did no good, I would still do it, because I think it does good for me.
George SaundersWhat concerns me most is the horrible degradation our notions of truth, civility, and decency have undergone. Also the way that language has been malformed - we have been overcome with banality and the cynical misuse of language. When a candidate runs a campaign on a series of dog-whistles to bigots, then turns around and talks about "healing the wounds of division," that is right out of Orwell.
George Saunders