I like books that don't give you an easy ride. I like the feeling of discomfort. The sense of being implicated.

... don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own... Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt.

She did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead.

I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.

Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.

Art is the Western myth, with which we both console ourselves and make ourselves.

A lot of [George Saunders] early stories now feel prophetic. Take the recent election [of Donald Trump]. Historians in 100 years might write about it as being the first internet election, in which what happened was actually an expression in the real world of a virtual reality. And you've been writing about that subject for a while.