American - Writer | December 2, 1958 -
It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore.
George Saunders
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Back in 1992, I had my first story accepted by 'The New Yorker.'
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A John Updike is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, if that generation is lucky: so comfortable in so many genres, the same lively, generous intelligence suffusing all he did.
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We have that illusion that we are 'deciding' what to make a character do, in order to 'convey our message' or something like that. But, at least in my experience, you are often more like a river-rafting guide who's been paid a bonus to purposely steer your clients into the roughest possible water.
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I'm finding, as I get older, that I'm not much of a believer in redemption. I mean, I believe in redemption in real life - redemption does happen, and it's cool when it does - but I find myself getting leery of my desire for it in stories (especially my own).
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I was a big and un-ironic fan of Dear Abby when I was a kid in Chicago. I think I sort of internalized her. So I have this inner Abby: cranky, proper, folksy yet scathing, with a beehive hairdo. But that's my issue.
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What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.
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Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.
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Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.
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Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to do so.
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Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.
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The word 'funny' is a bit like the word 'love' - we don't have enough words to describe the many varieties.
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