A Quote by George Saunders

There are books that I read years ago that enlivened things in me that haven't died yet. — © George Saunders
There are books that I read years ago that enlivened things in me that haven't died yet.
I really enjoyed reading the writings of Fredrick Buechner, I havent read anything by him in probably a decade but about 20 years ago I read four or five books of his and it helped me.
I've read over 4,000 books in the last 20+ years. I don't know anybody who's read more books than I have. I read all the time. I read very, very fast. People say, "Larry, it's statistically impossible for you to have read that many books."
Years and years ago, I said I did not want to write academic books. I want to write books that are in the language of the common person so that Joe, who didn't even go to college, can sit down and read my book and get it and apply it to his life.
I never read Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier." I've been reading books that I should have read years ago and did not. That's one of them.
Because people have read those things in the newspapers, they think it is true. Ten years ago all these things I have just mentioned would have upset me.
School did give me one of the greatest gifts of my life, though. I learned how to read, and for that I remain thankful. I would have died otherwise. As soon as I was able, I read, alone. Under the covers with a flashlight or in my corner of the attic—I sought solace in books. It was from books that I started to get an inkling of the kinds of assholes I was dealing with. I found allies too, in books, characters my age who were going through or had triumphed against the same bullshit.
My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books.
Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.
I have lots of gaps in my education, and so I'm often picking up classic books that most people read years ago.
One of the books we read a few years ago that had a big effect on us was Repeated Takes by Michael Chanan.
My father died when I was quite small, so my uncle used to buy me books and read them to me.
I have learned that my assignment is to write books for people who do not like to read books. I really try to connect with people who are not given to spending a lot of time with an open book. Pay day to me is when somebody comes up to me and says, "I never read books but I read yours." I have a heart for that person.
I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.
I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me - I didn't know I knew that then. Or maybe I didn't know it then, and I know more now.
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
For me, a lot of Discipline was very personal writing, like writing through and working out being inside this gendered body and also the compulsions of the body, the muting of the mind as driven by the body. My father had died some years ago so he haunts the book too, just floats through it ghost-like. But, the writing of every book is different for me. They are so like living creatures, these books, so I don't know what's carried over into the writing of the next things - except maybe that I'm best when I make my writing practice a routine.
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