George Saunders Quotes

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

I believe in a higher power and I believe in good and bad, right and wrong. You sleep in the bed you make.

We are responsible for actions performed in response to circumstances for which we are not responsible.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

The most ethical way to deal with an unethical situation would be to simply say: 'We did something wrong.' But nobody in a family like mine would ever respond like this.

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

Every action has a consequence, so always try to be good.

Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do.

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.

We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented.

Anybody that has had a brush with what feels like undiluted evil often ends up asking themselves the same questions - whether it's something that was a consequence of their own actions or actions that were taken against them or actions that they were caught up in.

Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

There's a Spanish proverb," he said, "that's always fascinated me. "Take what you want and pay for it, says God.'" "I don't believe in God," Daniel said, "but that principle seems, to me, to have a divinity of its own; a kind of blazing purity. What could be simpler, or more crucial? You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and that you will have to pay it.

Somewhere down the line everyone must pay for their misdeeds.

Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.

They are focused on whether they can do something. They never think whether they should do something.

There is no shame in black athletes not wanting to be role models, but there should be shame when they don't behave like one. It's a free country and people can do whatever they want. But just because we can doesn't mean we should.

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

You will be judged in years to come by how you responded to genocide on your watch.

There is no truth without responsibility following in its wake.

Someone once asked, 'What is the difference between me and Saddam Hussein?' The answer is, 'I have a conscience and he doesn't.'

Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.

'The Author' is a play about responsibility, how active we are as spectators and how responsible we are for what we choose to look at.

Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.