A Quote by George Saunders

I sometimes think that I can't do the bigger thing that [Zadie Smith] do so beautifully, as in Swing Time, with so much world in it and so much rapturous paint thrown around. I don't think it would be possible to write a book on that scale with as much OCD as I have.
I do think the smaller-scale studio works have that incredible love of data crunching, whereas I would say the large-scale earthworks tend to be much more stripped-down. With the mappings, as connected as they are to a much more analytical idea, what's a map? And can I make a map about time? I think the first time was Hurricane Sandy, the flood plane; a moment in time, but indelibly marked on any of us who were in the city. Mapping time is something that I'm really interested in.
What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation.
People think our work is monumental because it's art, but human beings do much bigger things: they build giant airports, highways for thousands of miles, much, much bigger than what we create.
I'm not much of a self-promoter or anything. It's not something I feel comfortable doing. But sometimes I would get frustrated, I'd think, "You know, this is a good book, how come no one is paying attention to it?" So it's nice to have some recognition. I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it. But what am I willing to do for that? I struggle with that a little bit. I try to be accommodating, but I'm pretty much a loner. I'll say this, and it'll sound like bullshit, but it's not: I don't really pay attention to this stuff very much.
I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible...
I think sometime we will go to Mars and I think we'll explore it with humans sometime, but I think it's really wise to do all the robotic exploration ahead of time and learn as much as possible. Once we have learned as much as possible with the robots, then that's the time to send people, and let them then continue the research that the robots have started.
If you try to simplify it as much as possible, I guess you could say if a guy who is my size can move around the same as a guy who is much smaller, you would think there are maybe going to be a few more advantages.
Time, Baby - so much, so much time left until the end of my life - sometimes I go crazy at how slowly time passes yet how quickly my body ages. But I shouldn't allow myself to think like this. I have to remind myself that time only frightens me when I think of having to spend it alone. Sometimes I scare myself with how many of my thoughts revolve around making me feel better about sleeping alone in a room.
I feel nervous because I revere [Zadie Smith] so much. I don't want to be stupid. If I say something stupid, just interrupt me.
Sometimes I really regret that I did not live in those times when there was still so much that was new; to be sure enough much is yet unknown, but I do not think that it will be possible to discover anything easily nowadays that would lead us to revise our entire outlook as radically as was possible in the days when telescopes and microscopes were still new.
I built the windmill 30 years ago in Tefen, and I think it was the right thing to build at that time, and I don't think that we did much with the solar or with windmills. Not much was done. I think we were too busy.
I think middle America has changed very, very much. I think people are way more open-minded. I think - I think it's because the Internet. I think they're exposed to so much. All the men talked about how much they love their wife, which I don't hear all the time in art communities.
So the problem in the West is that, especially in places like the USA, a person will obtain this much knowledge and immediately think that they have a large amount of knowledge. And then start to act on the basis of what they think, they posses. Instead of having this much knowledge and realizing that in fact this is only this much knowledge and the amount of where you can go there is where you came is much bigger than where you've already gotten.
People say you favor assassination, what do you think war is? Except that it's assassination on a much larger scale, a much more horrific scale.
I took time in the day to write as much of the book as I possibly could. I didn't write too much at night, because I don't like to - I'd rather watch TV.
I don't think I can write a book as nihilistic as some of my early ones. They're so bleak. I don't think I would enjoy that as much anymore. You really become fixated on ways out.
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