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George Saunders Quotes

Total quotes: 9
“Humor is what happens when we’re told the truth quicker and more directly than we’re used to.”
— George Saunders, The Brain-Dead Megaphone
Tagged: humor, Truth, Truth and Honesty, processing truth, straightforward, ridiculousness
“It’s a big world, and I really like it.”
— George Saunders, The Brain-Dead Megaphone
Tagged: big world, World, world full of possibilities, vast world, likeness
“…smile first, then speak.”
— George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone: Essays
Tagged: Speak, Speech, Communicating, talking
“All were in sorrow, or had been, or soon would be.
It was the nature of things.
Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true.
At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end.
We must try to see one another this way.
As suffering, limited beings -- 
Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces. 
His sympathy extended to all in this instant, blundering, in its strict logic, across all divides.
He was leaving here broken, awed, humbled, diminished.
Ready to believe anything of this world.
Made less rigidly himself through his loss.
Therefore quite powerful.
Reduced, ruined, remade.
Merciful, patient, dazzled. ”
— George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
Tagged: Grief, Mourning, Death, Lincoln In The Bardo, Stoicism
“His mind was freshly inclined towards sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that is his current state of sorry was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, and would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone.”
— George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
Tagged: Grief, Mourning, Death, Lincoln In The Bardo, Stoicism
“All over now. He is either in joy or nothingness.
(So why grieve?
The worst of it, for him, is over.)
Because I loved him so and am in the habit of loving him and that love must take the form of fussing and worry and doing.
Only there is nothing left to do.”
— George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
Tagged: Grief, Mourning, Death, Lincoln In The Bardo
“Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”
— George Saunders, The Big Thing About Little Things
Tagged: kindness, How To Live, Commencement Speeches
“Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.”
— George Saunders, The Big Thing About Little Things
Tagged: kindness, How To Live, Commencement Speeches
“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.”
— George Saunders, The Big Thing About Little Things
Tagged: kindness, How To Live, Commencement Speeches
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