#ch

Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived. ↗

— George Saunders

#chekhov #ever #greatest #i #lived

Early on, a story's meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it - and so things have to be ramped up. ↗

— George Saunders

#early #i #i write #know #meaning

For me, the game would be to assume a very intelligent reader who can extrapolate a lot from a little. And that's become my definition of art; to get that pitch just right, where I can put a hint on page three, and the reader's ears go up a bit, as opposed to dropping it all on the first page. ↗

— George Saunders

#assume #become #bit #definition #dropping

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar. ↗

— George Saunders

#character #drama #feel #foster #half

I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application. ↗

— George Saunders

#against #application #argument #being #conclusions

I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization. ↗

— George Saunders

#desires #emotions #fears #fiction #get

I turned 54 this year and I find myself feeling like I'm in a bit of a race to get down on paper the way I really feel about life - or the way it has presented to me. And because it has presented to me very beautifully, this is hard. It is technically very hard to show positive manifestations. ↗

— George Saunders

#beautifully #because #bit #down #feel

I was a big and un-ironic fan of Dear Abby when I was a kid in Chicago. I think I sort of internalized her. So I have this inner Abby: cranky, proper, folksy yet scathing, with a beehive hairdo. But that's my issue. ↗

— George Saunders

#big #chicago #cranky #dear #fan

I didn't want kids to think that to be happy, they had to be famous or rich or live in the big city. ↗

— Dan Savage

#big #big city #city #famous #had

I was a straight arrow, a control freak. I didn't do drugs or drink, and this was the '70s. I didn't like the loss of control. Which isn't exactly right, because I didn't know what happened when you did drugs. ↗

— George Saunders

#because #control #control freak #did #drink