Quotes from George Saunders

But hopeful dear us, we forget.

We were all over each other in the super-friendly way of puppies, or spouses meeting for the first time after one of them has undergone a close brush with death.

I want what I have previously always wanted most: i.e., to be so good at what I do that none may find fault with me and everyone is super pleased with me and agrees that I have no real competition in my field.

Had been grandmothers, tolerant and frank, recipients of certain dark secrets, who, by the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness, and thus let in the sun.

At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end.

How could we have been otherwise? Or, being that way, have done otherwise? We were that way, at that time, and had been led to that place, not by any innate evil in ourselves, but by the state of our cognition and our experience up until that moment.

The traveler must, of course, always be cautious of the overly broad generalization. But I am an American, and a paucity of data does not stop me from making sweeping vague conceptual statements and, if necessary, following these statements up with troops.

Based on my experience of life, which I have not exactly hit out of the park, I tend to agree with that thing about, If it's not broke, don't fix it. And would go even further, to: Even if it is broke, leave it alone, you'll probably make it worse.

At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end We must try to see one another in this way. As suffering, limited beings-- Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.

He seems to have a passable knowledge of how to pretend to churn butter.

Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true. At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end. We must try to see one another in this way. As suffering, limited beings -- Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.

How can Janet know she's not being her best self if someone doesn't tell her, then right away afterwards harshly discipline her?

Cause yourself to have such thoughts, however harsh, as will lead you to do what you know to be right.

American creative energy has always teetered on the brink of insanity.

Art is a reminder that you actually do contain multitudes--and that's OK.

Then let me be happy no more.

If such things as goodness and brotherhood and redemption exist, and may be attained, these must sometimes require blood, vengeance, the squirming terror of the former perpetrator, the vanquishing of the heartless oppressor.

What is my purpose? To get paid. How do I accomplish my purpose more efficiently?

Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel Do not like.

NONFICTION The Braindead Megaphone Congratulations

There was no moon.

A train approaches a wall at a fatal rate of speed. You hold a switch in your hand, that accomplishes you know not what: do you throw it? Disaster is otherwise assured. It costs you nothing. Why not try?

In your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter.

I'm not a bad guy. If only I could stop hoping. If only I could say to my heart: Give up. Be alone forever. There's always opera. There's angel-food cake and neighborhood children caroling, and the look of autumn leaves on a wet roof. But no. My heart's some kind of idiotic fishing bobber.