Top 200 George Saunders Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I’m a little lost.”

— George Saunders

52. “The most hopeful thing in the stories, I hope, is wit. I make it up. If I make up a world in which we’re ruled by big talking turds, it doesn’t mean that we are. So you shouldn’t feel depressed...”

— George Saunders

53. “What once were two, are one.”

— George Saunders

54. “Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.”

— George Saunders

55. “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

56. “Our grief must be defeated; it must not become our master, and make us ineffective, and put us even deeper into the ditch.”

— George Saunders

57. “I was back to feeling myself which, believe me, is no picnic.”

— George Saunders

58. “No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.”

— George Saunders

59. “I have finally realized that, you know, it’s not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations.”

— George Saunders

60. “The contours of the coming disaster expanded to include the deaths of all present.”

— George Saunders

61. “Some blows fall too heavy upon those too fragile.”

— George Saunders

62. “Kind little words, which are of the same blood as great and holy deeds,” flowed from his lips constantly.”

— George Saunders

63. “If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences – where things turn out better than you thought they would – ought to be in there somewhere, too.”

— George Saunders

64. “We are ready, sir; are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we can do.”

— George Saunders

65. “We have loved each other well, dear Willie, but now, for reasons we cannot understand, that bond has been broken. But our bond can never be broken. As long as I live, you will always be with me, child.”

— George Saunders

66. “Fox 8, jeez, how cud you not smell Poop of Wolf when it is rite on your own dang paw?”

— George Saunders

67. “Fiction helps us remember that everything remains to be seen.”

— George Saunders

68. “Whatever your supposed politics are – left, right – if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion and feel the human pain in a way that they might not if it was presented in a more conceptual way.”

— George Saunders

69. “We pretend to catch and eat more pretend bugs than could ever actually live in one cave. The number of pretend bugs we pretend to catch and eat would in reality basically fill a cave the size of our cave.”

— George Saunders

70. “The thousand dresses, laid out so reverently that afternoon, flecks of dust brushed off carefully in doorways, hems gathered up for the carriage trip: where are they now? Is a single one museum-displayed? Are some few yet saved in attics? Most are dust. As are the women who wore them so proudly in that transient moment of radiance.”

— George Saunders

71. “Character is that sum total of moments we can’t explain.”

— George Saunders

72. “I was a straight arrow, a control freak. I didn’t do drugs or drink, and this was the ’70s. I didn’t like the loss of control. Which isn’t exactly right, because I didn’t know what happened when you did drugs.”

— George Saunders

73. “That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been... Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”

— George Saunders

74. “It smelled of man sweat and spaghetti sauce and old books. Like a library where sweaty men went to cook spaghetti.”

— George Saunders

75. “Positive human action is not only possible, but pervasive; human beings can improve and choose light and so on. And this is all happening.”

— George Saunders

76. “Of suddenly remembering what was lost.”

— George Saunders

77. “A warm breeze arose, fragrant with all manner of things that give comfort: grass, sun, beer, bread, quilts, cream – this list being different for each of us, each being differently comforted. roger.”

— George Saunders

78. “Sermon: Why this surprising? Did you think you were going to live forever? Only difference between you, sitting there anticipating rest of your day, and Todd, in coffin, bound for eternal home in cold earth? Is heartbeat. Feel that, people? In your chests? This is thin line between you and grave. So why do you live like you are eternal? That foolish, you are fools. This scary? This not scary! This truth, this reality!”

— George Saunders

79. “In spite of the strife the stars were bright as crystal.”

— George Saunders

80. “According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.”

— George Saunders

81. “Oh, you break my heart. Why does everything have to be so sad to you? Why do you have so many negative opinions about things you don’t know about, like foreign countries and diseases and everything? Why can’t you be more like Chief Wayne? He has zero opinions. He’s just upbeat.”

— George Saunders

82. “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.”

— George Saunders

83. “Sometimes we might poop a bit if we are fresh. Which is just what I did, out on the cart that day: I pooped a bit while fresh, in my sick-box, out of rage, and what was the result? I have kept that poop with me all this time, and as a matter of fact – I hope you do not find this rude, young sir, or off-putting, I hope it does not impair our nascent friendship – that poop is still down there, at this moment, in my sick-box, albeit much dryer!”

— George Saunders

84. “The word ‘funny’ is a bit like the word ‘love’ – we don’t have enough words to describe the many varieties.”

— George Saunders

85. “I grew up in Chicago on the South Side, and had a ton of freedom, just did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. At the risk of sounding dopey, I would say it was blissful.”

— George Saunders

86. “The thing about girls? Suzanne said. Is we are more content-driven.”

— George Saunders

87. “Oh, the pathos of it! – haggard, drawn into fixed lines of unutterable sadness, with a look of loneliness, as of a soul whose depth of sorrow and bitterness no human sympathy could ever reach. The impression I carried away was that I had seen, not so much the President of the United States, as the saddest man in the world.”

— George Saunders

88. “There are days so perfect you feel: This is what life about. When old, will feel whole life worth it, because I got to experience this perfect day. Today that kind of day.”

— George Saunders

89. “I’m bleeding at the knees and choking from smoke and have no idea who these people are or where I’m going, but at least I’m off the hook in terms of the hand jobs.”

— George Saunders

90. “What is truth, if not an ongoing faith in, and continuing hope for, that which one feels and knows in one’s heart to be right, all temporary and ephemeral contraindications notwithstanding?”

— George Saunders

91. “He was not perfect; he was, remember, a little boy. Could be wild, naughty, overwrought. He was a boy. However – it must be said – he was quite a good boy.”

— George Saunders

92. “And I woslike: O wow.”

— George Saunders

93. “Great sobs choked his utterance. He buried his head in his hands, and his tall frame was convulsed with emotion. I stood at the foot of the bed, my eyes full of tears, looking at the man in silent, awe-stricken wonder. His grief unnerved him, and made him a weak, passive child. I did not dream that his rugged nature could be so moved. I shall never forget those solemn moments – genius and greatness weeping over love’s lost idol.”

— George Saunders

94. “Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.”

— George Saunders

95. “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

96. “The artist’s job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery.”

— George Saunders

97. “There is no world save the one we make with our minds, and the mind’s predisposition determines the type of world we see.”

— George Saunders

98. “Plus he’d been raised on a farm, or near a farm anyways, and anybody raised on a farm knew you had to do what you had to do in terms of sick animals or extra animals – the pup being not sick, just extra.”

— George Saunders

99. “The Russians, when I found them a few years later, worked on me in the same way. They seemed to regard fiction not as something decorative but as a vital moral-ethical tool. They changed you when you read them, made the world seem to be telling a different, more interesting story, a story in which you might play a meaningful part, and in which you had responsibilities.”

— George Saunders

100. “No, war will not be stopped. But it is a comfort, in the midst of a war, to read an antiwar book this good, and be reminded that just because something keeps happening, doesn’t mean we get to stop regretting it. Massacres are bad, the death of innocents is bad, hate is bad, and there’s something cleansing about hearing it said so purely.”

— George Saunders