If you havent read you dont have the voice. The lack of voice eliminates experience. – George Saunders
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. – George Saunders
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. – George Saunders
The cool parts – the parts that have won Dubai its reputation as the Vegas of the Middle East or the Venice of the Middle East or the Disney World of the Middle East, if Disney World were the size of San Francisco and out in a desert – have been built in the last ten years. – George Saunders