American - Writer | December 2, 1958 -
When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.
George Saunders
CultureBadStatus QuoSeeDiscourse
For me, the game would be to assume a very intelligent reader who can extrapolate a lot from a little. And that's become my definition of art; to get that pitch just right, where I can put a hint on page three, and the reader's ears go up a bit, as opposed to dropping it all on the first page.
ArtMeGameI CanThreeBecome
You don't want to be that parent - the one who dresses his kid in a cloth sack when all the other kids are in Armani cloth sacks - especially in a time like ours, when materialism is not only rampant and ascendant but is fast becoming the only game in town.
TimeGameParentYouFastWant
It seems to me a worthy goal: try to create a representation of consciousness that's durable and truthful, i.e., that accounts, somewhat, for all the strange, tiny, hard-to-articulate, instantaneous, unwilled things that actually go on in our minds in the course of a given day, or even a given moment.
MomentDayMeGoalCreateGo
I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.
GoodStoryThinkDetailsShort
To me, the writer's main job is to just make the story unscroll in such a way that the reader is snared - she's right there, seeing things happen and caring about them. And if you dedicate yourself to this job, the meanings more or less take care of themselves. That's the theory, anyway.
JobYourselfCaringMeStoryCare
The universal human laws - need, love for the beloved, fear, hunger, periodic exaltation, the kindness that rises up naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain - are constant, predictable, reliable, universal, and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture.
LoveKindnessFearCultureDetails
The 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.
EyesMindYouPlaceDesireBecome
When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.
KnowMoreWriteNeedGoingPercent
If death is in the room, it's pretty interesting. But I would also say that I'm interested in getting myself to believe that it's going to happen to me. I'm interested in it, because if you're not, you're nuts. It's really de facto what we're here to find out about.
MyselfDeathMeBelieveInteresting
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.
PeopleMindPersonMattersWrite
There might be a different model for a literary community that's quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity.
CommunityMoreSpontaneityDifferent
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