If you understand writing as primarily engaging an imaginary reader, well, you've kind of been doing that your … - George Saunders

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Hail to the man who went through life always helping others, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien. Such is the stuff of which the great moral leaders are made.

George Saunders

If you understand writing as primarily engaging an imaginary reader, well, you've kind of been doing that your whole life. You walk into a room and you're engaging with imaginary strangers because you don't actually know who they are. For me, it was really empowering to say: this is a branch of entertainment and communication and engagement, as opposed to jumping over some perceived literary high bar. That was the buzzkill.

Actually, Communication, Empowering, Jumping, Opposed, Writing

Same Author Quotes

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Advice, Kindness, Life, Regret

Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.

Amen, Confused, Die, Hurt, Life

I think it is time for a new pride in the intellectual life, and a new impatience with people who take pride in ignorance, or somehow use "elite" to mean "person who has taken the time to know" and then are eager to dismiss, say, striving, or the notion that improving one's self out of difficult conditions is a noble thing.

Ignorance, Impatience, Mean, Taken, Thing, Use

The thing I've discovered that is a help is that there isn't a simple virtue or a simple vice. They're always connected. If you have Tendency A, that you loathe, you can almost be sure that Tendency B, which you love, is somehow connected to it.

Discovered, Love Is, Simple, Thing, Vice, Vices

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.

Graduation, Human, Kindness, Life, Regret, Suffering