A Quote by George Saunders

I live up in the hills, and I don't have any cable, and I have really slow satellite, so that does it - because being on the Internet is okay, but it takes a long time. I have a prediction that at some point, there will be a backlash. Like at the end of the '60s, there was that back-to-the-land movement, and I'm guessing that people will start consciously saying, "I'm not taking the phone with me," or "I'm only checking email x number of times a day," or "I'm not ever gonna self-Google," for example.
You will never ever, in any circumstance, win any struggle at any time. That being said, we have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.
As the day goes on you get more and more tired. Even if people say they're afternoon people or evening people, it's always best to start out first thing in the morning with your most important task as opposed to your email, phone calls, or checking the internet. If you start out with that then basically you'll just do that all day long.
Email is a mind-killer. Like, I really think getting a smartphone is the worst move I ever did in being a musician because while we've just been talking my phone's vibrated like 15 times and I only get push notifications for like two apps, so either like a bunch of houses are going up for sale right now or someone's like, "Why aren't you emailing me back?" It's just hard to stay in the moment. I can understand why people go to retreats to write and stuff like that but I don't have the time.
The goal for me is, I build the record that I put out as one individual song. Even though it's broken up into tracks, to me it's like one hour-long piece of music. In assembling the whole thing, I'm really thinking, okay, it's gonna end here, it's gonna start here, and I kind of have the idea of the journey.
In my view, the pro-life movement at this point should focus on seeking to reduce the number of abortions. At times it will require political education and legal fights, at times it will require education and the establishment of alternatives to abortion, such as adoption centers. Unfortunately, such measures are sometimes opposed by so-called hard-liners in the pro-life movement. These hard-liners are fools. Because they want to outlaw all abortions, they refuse to settle for stopping some abortions; the consequence is that they end up preventing no abortions.
I don't tweet, Twitter, email, Facebook, look book, no kind of book. I have a land line phone at my home - that's the only phone I have. If my phone rang every day like everyone else around me, I would lose my mind.
There is an infinite selection of things that I could test in life, so I generally will look for a critical mass of word that comes back to me. At this point I have hundreds of friends who are the best at what they do, arguably number one in the country or in the world. I will oftentimes just kind of throw a volley out to people, ask them what they're obsessing on or what they find interesting that's on the fringe. If the same answer comes back a few times, I'm like, "Okay."
There is no example of someone reading their scripture and saying, 'I have a prediction about the world that no one knows yet, because this gave me insight. Let's go test that prediction,' and have the prediction be correct.
Only my phone number and email are private because I don't want random people calling me. But I like the ability to share everything.
I believe that the confidence, really being okay with myself, and really being okay with my gift have grown over the years. It just came with time, and it came with getting my feelings hurt, a few times, and realizing to stop performing for people but if perform for God, who gave you the talent, then you can care less about what any casting directors, producers, or what any of them think. You're doing it for a higher purpose. If they don't like it, that's okay! God does.
I see Nick's number. I debate whether to assign a name to his number. If I commit to that, then I will truly be heartbroken if he never calls me again; my heart will knot each and every time I use this phone and see his name in there. I would probably end up having to trash the phone entirely.
The first time I go out to Nashville, ever (at this point I had only heard the rumors about what it's like) I had three writing sessions set up. The first two canceled on me. I was kind of pissed off at that point. So I just went back to my hotel room and started writing. And even though I've been to L.A. and experienced a lot of things, at the end of the day I just start to feel like I'm playing acoustically at the first bar I ever played at.
The common thread of the series is that these are the books that Elephant and Piggie like to read. Elephant and Piggie are retired, so this is what they do in their spare time. What will they end up wanting to read? Time will tell. We've got to let that evolution happen as the series goes on. Any return of a character would have to be organic, would have to be, for example, Laurie Keller saying, hey, I really want to do this, and me feeling that there's a story there, rather than just saying, yeah, we can get three books out of these characters.
I don't believe in religion. I believe the example of Christ. I believe in the example of a perfect human being that if you can live for other people away from yourself you will be happy. If you live for yourself you will be unhappy and then you will not be able to sleep or do anything else... finally. I think insofar, and I really believe this, insofar as people do live with the other fellow [God] in mind, they have to be happy you know? Because it raises you up.
The number-one show in America on Sundays will be Celebrity Apprentice. Monday nights, The Voice will be number one. Wednesday nights, Survivor will be number one. And Friday nights, Shark Tank will be number one. It just takes some time management for me to focus.
There's always something in new technology that promotes anxiety on the one hand, but also grieving on the other. With the internet, I think we can remember a time when people said "I don't use email," or "I'm not going to get email." I once had to do a piece on people who had never used the internet and refused to start and I found three people. But when I talked to them, they had used it, at some point or another. It's almost impossible to stay off the internet entirely. We feel as though we didn't get to make a decision. There's this new dawn and we all have to embrace it.
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