George Saunders Quotes

For me, I'm constantly writing stuff that is what I'm dealing with on a personal, psychological level. And I think that I bring that to whatever I'm doing, whether it's being an actor or a writer or whatever it is I'm doing. I think you can't help but do that.

I tend to write it and then let go emotionally.

I'm an incredibly emotional person, but I always feel bad about that. The work is therapy... I need to emote wildly while I write. I weep. I'll laugh, get excited, and get up and pace. I try to take the emotional journey with the characters.

I don't investigate things by writing about them, but let them build up inside of me.

I like to take all my feelings and thoughts and put them down in different ways on paper.

I started writing for myself when I didn't know how to understand how I was feeling, and I didn't know how to talk to people about it, so I would break into the subconscious to try and understand what I was going through.

I wrote songs when I was little, and I wrote a journal, but I don't think I knew how to let that truth come out yet.

My films are always a reflection of where I am in my life.

When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity.

The process of writing a poem represents work done on the self of the poet, in order to make form.

Shameless actually good since it gives a kind of freedom. We consider the old, functionless shame destructive. Today, if you have a strong sense of shame you also have a strong desire to overcome it. And that's when you can write.

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.

I don't know about writing. It's quite lonely. You have to have a lot of patience with yourself.

One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

I usually don't write about my life right when it happens. I process it, and I store it away. Then, when I get in the mood I pull the stuff back out.

I write to make sense of my life." -John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey

Self-discovery in songwriting, bringing something forth that's instructive to yourself - some of the best songs that you will ever write are the ones where you didn't have to think about any of that stuff, but nonetheless that's what's happening in the song.

The ordinary man puts up a struggle against all that is not himself, whereas it is against himself, in a limited but all-essential field, that the artist has to battle.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

In terms of the feeling of the piece, I cant think about what people are gonna think about it, what are the critics gonna say, I'm trying to bring some resolution, and realize that myself. It's a struggle; it's a process that gets us this.

Everything I've written has been personal and touched on things that I needed to deal with in my personal life. So I just feel that writing is great therapy, and the best writing comes from truth, and so I mine my life constantly for that.

Writing is how I metabolize life and how I give and receive.

I can't play anything until I find something that connects to my life, something I can carry as my secret map or code for the character.