Quotes from George Saunders

All gifts are temporary.

A story means, at the highest level, not by what it concludes but by how it proceeds.

and don't take no shit from nobody, unless taking shit from them is part of your master plan to get the best of them by tricking them into being your friend.

One feels such love for the little ones, such anticipation that all that is lovely in life will be known by them, such fondness for that set of attributes manifested uniquely in each: mannerisms of bravado, of vulnerability, habits of speech and mispronouncement and so forth; the smell of the hair and head, the feel of the tiny hand in yours—and then the little one is gone! Taken!

What transforms an anecdote into a story is escalation.

all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact;

Turn that Megaphone down, and insist that what's said through it be as precise, intelligent, and humane as possible.

that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.

Then do that again, over and over, until I'm pleased.

If there is fud, it shud be fud for all, rite?

We're done. Don't you see?

From nothingness, there arose great love; now, its source nullified, that love, searching and sick, converts to the most abysmal suffering imaginable. In

None of it was real; nothing was real. Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear. These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and, in this way, brought them forth. And now must lose them. I

So, to generalize a bit here: in a highly organized system, the causation is more pronounced and intentional. The elements seem to have been more precisely selected. Things escalate decisively; everything is to purpose.

I am not stable and Mary not stable and the very buildings and monuments here not stable and the greater city not stable and the wide world not stable. All alter, are altering, in every instant.

In workshop, we talk a lot about raising the stakes of a story. Semyon just did this. There was a bare wire labeled Marya and a bare wire labeled Peasants in a Teahouse and electricity was coursing through each but they were laid out parallel to one another, several feet apart. Semyon, by reacting to the swearimg, just crossed them. Marya and those gathered peasants had nothing to do with one another, were not in relation. Now they do, and are.

Never in my nearly eighty years of life on earth had I experienced a greater or more bitter contrast between happiness (the happiness I felt even glimpsing that exalted tent, from such a great distance) and sadness (I was not within the tent, and even a few seconds without seemed a dreadful eternity).

Turns out, all mean same: Bastard = individual standing across from us. Turd = individual standing across from us. Creep = individual standing across from us. Idiot = individual standing across from us.

So we have the dilemma put to us, What to do, when his power must continue two years longer and when the existence of our country may be endangered before he can be replaced by a man of sense. How hard, in order to save the country, to sustain a man who is incompetent. In "Lincoln Reconsidered," by David Herbert Donald, letter from George Bancroft to Francis Lieber.

the people who used to ask, "Is it news?" now seem to be asking, "Will it stimulate?" And the change is felt, high and low, throughout the culture.

The Presdt is an idiot.

I guess one never realizes how little one wants to be kicked to death until one hears a crowd doing that exact same thing to someone nearby," I say.

Trap. Horrible trap. At one's birth it is sprung. Some last day must arrive. When you will need to get out of this body. Bad enough. Then we bring a baby here. The terms of the trap are compounded. That baby also must depart. All pleasures should be tainted by that knowledge. But hopeful dear us, we forget.

We're in a culture that doesn't value writing as highly as it should. And I think we see that in our public discourse, I think we see that in our susceptibility to the big ol' lie.