I was thinking about the legacy of ghosts in fiction, and specifically the moral power of those Dickensian ghosts. Because a ghost can be a very powerful but also manipulative element.
George SaundersThe generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?
George SaundersWhy were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.
George SaundersThe mind is a machine that is constantly asking: What would I prefer? Close your eyes, refuse to move, and watch what your mind does. What it does is become discontent with that-which-is. A desire arises, you satisfy that desire, and another arises in its place.
George SaundersA work of art is something produced by a person, but is not that person โ it is of her, but is not her. Itโs a reach, really โ the artist is trying to inhabit, temporarily, a more compact, distilled, efficient, wittier, more true-seeing, precise version of herself โ one that she canโt replicate in so-called โrealโ life, no matter how hard she tries. Thatโs why she writes: to try and briefly be more than she truly is.
George Saunders