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“Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.”

—George Saunders

“They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone's affection for you always expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he'd ever--”

—George Saunders, Tenth of December

“David Foster Wallace said somewhere that writer's block is always a case of the writer holding artificially high standards for herself. Because, when you think of it, nobody gets Typer's Block. The block starts when you start judging what is ABOUT TO COME OUT and you go: Oh, no you don't. That = block. So I think one good antidote is just to type a bunch of shit, basically, knowing that you can (and must) go back through and edit all of that, and find some gold in it - even if it's just a phrase...”

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George Saunders on writers block and his writing process

Questions? → Ask George Saunders

“For me the trick has been to structure my life so that most of my time is spent in the writing room. Most of a person’s understanding of truth is happening there. This success—it’s just like you are walking down the street and at some points you smell a great meal cooking and sometimes you’ll smell a dumpster. But you took that path and you accept the smells that are coming at you and enjoy them. Or not. But you didn’t necessarily cause them.”

—George Saunders on writing, adding to our ongoing archive of notable wisdom on the written word.

“I don’t think you could ever make a good story by thinking if it would sell. But there is some kind of intersection between trying to write as sincerely and truthfully and well as you can and then some idea that a good-hearted reader would connect. ”

—Over at The Morning News, George Saunders reminds us that money shouldn’t be the object, echoing David Foster Wallace, Bob Dylan, and John Maynard Keynes.

“My heart goes out to him. Sort of. Because empathy depends on how you’ve spent your day.”

-George Saunders

“Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.”

—George Saunders, “Mr. Vonnegut in Sumatra”

“One of the great under-narrrated pleasures of living: long-term fidelity & love.”

—George Saunders, on being married for 25 years

“Fuck concepts. Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.”

—George Saunders

“Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.”

—George Saunders

“You know that feeling at the end of the day, when the anxiety of that-which-I-must-do falls away and, for maybe the first time that day, you see, with some clarity, the people you love and the ways you have, during that day, slightly ignored them, turned away from them to get back to what you were doing, blurted out some mildly hurtful thing, projected, instead of the deep love you really feel, a surge of defensiveness or self-protection or suspicion? That moment when you think, Oh God, what have I done with this day? And what am I doing with my life? And how must I change to avoid catastrophic end-of-life regrets? I feel like that now: tired of the Me I've always been, tired of making the same mistakes, repetitively stumbling after the same small ego strokes, being caught in the same loops of anxiety and defensiveness. At the end of my life, I know I won't be wishing I'd held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me... ”

—George Saunders - “Bhudda Boy” - from The Braindead Megaphone
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