A Quote by George Saunders

My mind has an obsessive, neurotic quality, but I also have a very hard work ethic. I know that a lot of people think, oh, you have a wild imagination. I don't, really. If ten people are sitting around and someone says, "Hey complete this sentence in a funny way," I'm never ahead of the pack.
I don't think it is as a trope or as something in our psyches. There's very little wilderness out there but there is wild mind, and the Wild mind that actually, as Gary Snyder says, wants to take care of things. There's an elegant quality to the wild mind.
I think also just being from the Midwest, my dad was a stoic Midwesterner, he always told me never take anything for granted and you have to work for what you get so. That's funny because my friend Frank Anderson said something really funny he goes, "A lot of the people from the midwest are the laziest shits I've ever met." And he's right. I know some. You can't say its a stereotype that only people from the Midwest are that way because there are definitely people I know who hate to work and just want to hang out and drink beer.
I think, as poets, we are in the odd position of constantly defending our art form. Which is funny and also sort of invigorating, too. No one really says, "Oh you're a lawyer? I've never understood the law. In fact, I kind of hate it." Or, "Oh you wait tables? I didn't know that was something people did." I say it can be invigorating because, on some level, we have to evaluate what we do and why we do it almost daily. We have to explain ourselves to people all the time. We have to say, "Yes, I am a unicorn, believe in me."
I have a pretty crazy work ethic, most people around me think it's a little off the charts, like I'm always working on something. The thing is, as hard as I work at what I do, I love it so much it really never feels like work at this point in my life.
I love funny people, and when I'm with funny people, or people who are amusing in their weirdness, I love it. Because that to me is funny, as opposed to someone who stops and says, 'Hey let me tell you a joke.'
It's not hard for me to be funny. But it's really hard. I don't think a lot of people are funny. I meet a lot of people, and most of them aren't funny.
First of all, I really appreciate what I've got and I know that we're all sort of on borrowed time. I think I'm also kind of neurotic and scared - I never feel, like, 'Oh, I got this on lock, no problem.' I think that combined with having such an amazing team that are bringing in fresh ideas is what's made it work.
I have tried to emphasize to people that, hey, just like President Obama was a really good president, and the fact that he was black I think was historic and unprecedented, but he also claimed and owned his excellence, and that's why I'm saying, okay - I think it's really exciting and historic that I would be the first woman president, but I have a lot of work I want to do. And I hope that people will say, "Hey, she's getting it done." That's how I think about it.
Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best. You don't want to work with people who don't care or who are acting out some neurotic, crazy thesis on the set.
I didn't have a teen age at all. I didn't even look at boys, never mind... then suddenly it was like, 'Oh my god!' So I made up for a lot of lost time very quickly. It was kind of bonkers. Working hard, partying hard - but also experiencing life, you know.
You need an immense amount of luck and an immense amount of perseverance to even be on the playing field for success on a grand scale. You work as hard as you can for ten years so you finally have a chance to be lucky - It's really rare that somebody gets lucky. It's usually a combination of a lot of talent, a lot of hard work. People that get lucky also tend to be really great looking.
Sometimes things aren't a dream because you don't really think it's a possibility. So my goal on a daily basis is just to go to work and be someone that people like to be around. I just want to work hard and be nice to people, and I feel like when you touch people in that way, on a more personal level, then they go to work the next day pushing for you. And that's when an opportunity comes that you wouldn't have even expected otherwise.
Most of my life, everybody made more money than I did at the places I worked. In fact, when I've been an employee, I have never been anywhere close to being the highest paid person there, never. I was working hard. I was working hard. I was doing things I didn't want to do, that I thought I should do. I was getting up every day, going to work, did not phone in sick. Striving. Trying to get ahead, you know, doing what Obama says, working hard and applying myself and trying to get ahead. There was always somebody, there were always a lot of people that earned more than I did.
I've always been someone who has been very driven. I think my circumstances, how I grew up, hard work and work ethic are absolutely vital to any success that people might have, regardless of what they might be doing.
A work of fiction is conceived very much the same way as a dream occurs in the mind of a sleeper. But a lot of it is imagination. It's not based on real people.
I have a very big phone book and a very long reach around the world. And I think - I don't think, I know - that 95 percent of the people who I know who weren't born into success who have become successful and done things that are different and made a lot of money and had a lot of excitement in their life are people who never hear the word 'no.'
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