George Saunders Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Used, Happens

  George Saunders (2012). “The Brain-Dead Megaphone”, p.80, A&C Black

• The chances of a person breaking through their own habits and sloth and limited mind to actually write something that gets out there and matters to people are slim.

  George Saunders

  Writing, People, Sloth

  George Saunders (2013). “Tenth of December”, p.21, A&C Black

• Intelligent, heartfelt stories that tell a whole new set of truths about growing up American. Julie Orringer writes with virtuosity and depth about the fears, cruelties, and humiliations of childhood, but then does that rarest, and more difficult, thing: writes equally beautifully about the moments of victory and transcendence.

  George Saunders

  Growing Up, Writing, Intelligent

• I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Thinking, Style

• Early on, a story's meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it - and so things have to be ramped up.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Mean, Stories

  George Saunders (2013). “Tenth of December”, p.29, A&C Black

• If I'm writing a story and you're reading it, or vice versa, you took time out of your day to pick up my book. I think the one thing that will kill that relationship is if you feel me condescending to you in the process.

  George Saunders

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Writing a story I am just trying to find some little interesting thing to start out with: something small, even trivial. Preferably something that doesn't have a lot of thematic or political baggage - a little crumb that is interesting.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Interesting, Political

• The only thing I might have noticed [and this is pretty anecdotal] is that there is some tendency to need to be taught that 'writing is rewriting' - maybe more of a sense than was pervasive 10 years ago that the first or second pass of a story is sufficient. That is an idea that is easily dislodged, but I suspect it might have something to do with the turnaround time re: blogging and so on - this sense that there is some essential truth about a first draft that one runs the risk of "ruining" by coming back to it.

  George Saunders

  Running, Writing, Years

  "George Saunders on Trump, Mystery, and Why He Rejects Social Media". Interview with Catherine Woodiwiss, sojo.net. August 30, 2016.

• I would say one thing writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] did for me was underscore the fact that this issue [all men are created equal] has never been properly addressed and it hasn't gone away.

  George Saunders

  Book, Writing, Men

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There are things that are shadow sides of the creative energy that are negative and all that kind of stuff. The only thing that I say to myself is, in the spirit of that quote from the Gnostic Gospels: Writing is a way to let all that stuff out into the sun.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Creative, Shadow

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the more the book teaches you its internal rules.

  George Saunders

  Book, Writing, Firsts

  Source: therumpus.net

• I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Air, Stories

  Interview With Jenny Shank, www.patheos.com. March 6, 2017.

• You don't want to spend your life writing about stuff that doesn't matter. You want to try to pull out of the temporal mediocre and write in a way that is meaningful to everybody. This goes back to this idea of being intimate with your reader. Since we're all down here and we're all dying and aspiring and loving and feeling inadequate, all these things that we all are doing all the time, what a relief it is, when somebody looks at you and says, "Yeah, me too."

  George Saunders

  Meaningful, Writing, Feelings

  "George Saunders: It's All About Suckage-Avoidance". Interview With Doug Polisin, www.audible.com. March 15, 2017.

• I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Years, Stories

• That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not, "I want to write about a gravedigger." But you're walking along and - boop! shovel. "Ok, what does one do with a shovel? Digs a hole. Why? I don't know yet. Dig the hole! Oh, look a body."

  George Saunders

  Writing, Doe, Looks

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process of getting all of my notes typed up, then scanning through the notes, trying to extract or find certain vignettes that seem like they might write well - that might have a potential for good energy, shape, etc. And then at some point I start stringing these together, keeping an eye on the word count.

  George Saunders

  Eye, Writing, Trying

• I used to joke about this but I've recently realized that I really believe it: I spent many years training myself to write very slowly for pretty good money. So the idea of writing really quickly for free offends me.

  George Saunders

  Believe, Writing, Years

  "George Saunders on Trump, Mystery, and Why He Rejects Social Media". Interview with Catherine Woodiwiss, sojo.net. August 30, 2016.

• While writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], [idea of inclusion] occurred to me, you either believe in the Constitution or you don't. If you do, it's intense in what it wants of us.

  George Saunders

  Believe, Book, Writing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Even if something within me is ugly, writing is a pretty good place to play with that thing and to begin to really see it.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Play, Ugly

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When you're embarking on a piece of writing, the anxiety is just too much, especially when you're young and you're trying to figure out if this is your thing or not. You feel like, "if I don't write a good story, I gotta get going to law school!"

  George Saunders

  Writing, School, Law

  Source: therumpus.net

• Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment. It's what's between us and chaos.

  George Saunders

  Reading, Writing, Skills

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

• You didn't plan to write a story; it just happened. Well, it could be argued that the next thing you should do is find a hole to dig. Right? So you start digging a hole and then somebody brings a body along and puts it in. That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not that you say, "I want to write a story about a gravedigger." But you're walking along and "I don't know what I'm doing here in this story,' and - boop! a shovel. "Oh, interesting. Ok, what does one do with a shovel? Digs a hole. Why? I don't know yet. Dig the hole! Oh, look a body."

  George Saunders

  Writing, Interesting, Walking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Needs, Produce

• The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't come home your best self.

  George Saunders

  Struggle, Writing, Tired

• My 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 Saunders

  Writing, Ideas, Trying

  Source: www.nationalbook.org

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