Quotes by George Saunders

About George Saunders:

George Saunders is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, American Psyche, to the weekend magazine of The Guardian until October 2008.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

O.K., then, all right, they would adopt a white-trash dog. Ha ha. They could name it Zeke, buy it a little corncob pipe and a straw hat. She imagined the puppy, having crapped on the rug, looking up at her, going, Cain’t hep it. But no. Had she com...

George Saunders

A bad thing happened to you kids, Dad said. But it could have been worse. So much worse, Mom said. But because of you kids, Dad said, it wasn't. You did so good, Mom said. Did beautiful, Dad said.

George Saunders

Josh joined her at the window. She let him look. He should know that the world was not all lessons and iguanas and Nintendo. It was also this muddy simple boy tethered like an animal.

George Saunders

I guess you just have to trust your kids, trust that their innate interest in life will win out in the end, don’t you think?

George Saunders

One of pleasures of parenting, future reader: parent can positively influence kid, make moment kid will remember for rest of life, moment that alters his/her trajectory, opens up his/her heart + mind.

George Saunders

It was that impossible thing: happiness that does not wilt to reveal the thin shoots of some new desire rising from within it.

George Saunders

From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew amount them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and fore...

George Saunders

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

George Saunders

Dad had once said, Trust your mind, Rob. If it smells like shit but has writing across it that says Happy Birthday and a candle stuck down in it, what is it? Is there icing on it? he'd said. Dad had done that thing of squinting his eyes when an answe...

George Saunders

Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.

George Saunders

Do not really like rich people, as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very, very lucky. I know that. But still, it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey...

George Saunders

After that came her biggie: a triple murder--her dealer, the dealer's sister, and the dealer's sister's boyfriend. Reading that made me feel a little funny that we'd fucked and I'd loved her.

George Saunders

Is this the baby?" I said. Ma turned on me again. "What do you think it is?" she said. "A midget that can't talk?

George Saunders

What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy has a crazy notion different from your crazy notion, you pat him on the back and say, Hey pal, nice crazy notion, let's go have a beer. Ameri...

George Saunders

America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamourous reasonable voice.

George Saunders

You were torturing a cat," she says. "With a freaking prod." "A prod I built myself in metal shop," he says. "But of course you never mention that.

George Saunders

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

I hold the biscuits in front of his face and he stands up. "What do I have to do?" he says. "Nothing," I say. "They're for you." "Are they poisoned?" he says. "No," I say. "Eat one," he says. So I do. "Probably the others are poisoned," he says. "Eat...

George Saunders

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

George Saunders

The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't c...

George Saunders

Author Bio

  • NameGeorge Saunders
  • DescriptionAmerican short story writer
  • BornDecember 2, 1958
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Essayist; Teacher
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; MacArthur Fellows Program; Folio Prize