#he

Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar. ↗

— Ferdinand de Saussure

#directed #grammar #henceforth #language #longer

Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we're someone else, disrupting the delusion that we're permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we're saved!) other people are real again, and we're fond of them. ↗

— George Saunders

#believe #briefly #center #delusion #else

To me, the writer's main job is to just make the story unscroll in such a way that the reader is snared - she's right there, seeing things happen and caring about them. And if you dedicate yourself to this job, the meanings more or less take care of themselves. That's the theory, anyway. ↗

— George Saunders

#anyway #care #caring #dedicate #happen

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 could actually care less about the poor. We have some living near us, and pee-yew. They are always coming and going to their three or four jobs at all hours of the day and night. Annoying! ↗

— George Saunders

#actually #always #annoying #care #coming

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

What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other. ↗

— George Saunders

#desires #finds #found #know #most