George Saunders Quotes

Amadeus Mozart is to music something like Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was to literature. They are people who created something that nobody before them had. Absolute geniuses. You can recognize their harmonies among thousands.

It is impossible that a genius - at least a literary genius - can ever be discovered by his intimates; they are so close to him that he is out of focus to them and they can't get at his proportions; they can't perceive that there is any considerable difference between his bulk and their own.

Works of genius are the first things in the world.

Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.

Beerbohm was a genius of the purest kind. He stands at the summit of his art.

There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor

The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child!

Be sure that you make a difference in the world.

Bob has never written a bad song. Bob Dylan is a genius.

The term "genius" gets used far too loosely in rock & roll.

Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.

There's a certain standard in classical music that allows the application of the term "genius," but you're treading on thin ice if you start applying it to rock & rollers.

For a genius to be a genius, he must have a selfless slave between himself and the world.

You want to do something a little bit meaningful, because we're not saving the planet or anything, but we want to contribute in a positive way, in a way that makes a difference or makes somebody feel something.

If you're going to follow your bliss and make a difference in the world, you'll soon learn that you can't follow the herd.

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.

Saying that a great genius is mad, while at the same time recognizing his artistic worth, is like saying that he had rheumatism or suffered from diabetes. Madness, in fact, is a medical term that can claim no more notice from the objective critic than he grants the charge of heresy raised by the theologian, or the charge of immorality raised by the police.

I think Tony Fucile, who did the illustrations [for Bink & Gollie], is an absolute genius. I've never met him.

All men of genius, and all those who have gained rank in the republic of letters, are brothers, whatever may be the land of their nativity.

Make a difference no matter what role you play

I just hope to make a difference.

I think Yelena Akhtiorskaya is a genius. What she manages to do, linguistically and emotionally, in the span of a single sentence, is astonishing.

Don't think about making money, think about making a difference, spot where others are doing it badly and do it better

Genius is a talent only for living, those who possess it have little gift for dying.