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
The word funny is a bit like the word love – we dont have enough words to describe the many varieties. – 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
I started out in engineering. I was a geophysical engineer. Throughout the course of my life Ive done a lot of strange jobs, and the effect has been to make me think a little more skeptically about our capitalist society. – George Saunders