[George Saunders] is very precise about what he is doing. There isn't a thing left to chance.
The void yields up nothing. You have to be a great poet to make it ring.
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none
Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead
Style means the right word. The rest matters little.
A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own; and it is as full of good fellowship as a sugar maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects grave and gay. . . . For real company and friendship there is nothing, outside of the animal kingdom, that is comparable to a river.
When would he realize that it wasn't his infidelity I couldn't bear, but his cowardice?
To gain more abundance a person needs more skills and needs to be more creative and cooperative.
So where do the ideas-the salable ideas-come from? They come from my nightmares. Not the night-time variety, as a rule, but the ones that hide just beyond the doorway that separates the conscious from the unconscious.