George Saunders Quotes

I've always written plays for the purpose of getting something out of my system.

When I have worries, fears or a love affair, I have the luck of being able to transform it into a poem.

There's no better way to process pain than to write.

I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze.

I really don't feel that writing is therapy.

Most artists - painters or writers - I think create out of stress or negative situations. Look at rock music. It's about getting things off of your chest, and it's a means of venting in many ways. That's what my work is about.

When I do music, I'm really getting the devil up off me.

By writing I can live in ways that I could not survive.

Writing is not my problem, it is my solution.

I do these records. All of these ideas that I have, that I put out there, that inspire me to write, are a purging in a lot of ways. I have to expel them in order for myself to walk around and actually smile and be a regular, or a living, person.

If you are disappearing from yourself, but you're still writing, then there is a kind of activity of thinking going on, which in my world is similar to what's going on in music.

Remember that the writing itself is good for you. If your story is so close to home that you are afraid to write it, it probably means you need to write it.

I do think that just about whenever I am writing, or more accurately, whenever I have written, I feel better and more at peace as a human being. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the literary product is any good.

I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.

Writing is therapeutic. It helps you cope with issues that seem gargantuan at the time. The process of expressing yourself about a problem, editing your thoughts, and writing some more can help you control issues that you face.

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing. I do not understand it. I feel it as a torture, which I must get rid of, but never as a pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a great pain.

Writing becomes a really good creative outlet when you're sitting there and feeling creatively frustrated or stilted, but also you then get to write parts for yourself.

Heartbreak was the impetus to me writing poems and music in the first place. Over the years, I had my heart broken so badly that if I didn't find a way to get all the pain out, I was going to lose my mind. I was crazy! Like, wanting to slash tires and smash car windows. Crazy! I was so hurt that I had to write.

I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine.

I really enjoy the therapeutic value of writing songs.

Just writing and being in the studio was like therapy for me.

I had a lot of songs and words and scenes stuck inside of me. So Jacknife encouraged me to bring them all out. So, in essence, 'You and Others' is my diary.

I always wrote poetry as a teenager and it was always so dark, but it made me feel good to get it out.

Lyrically, I personally lean towards venting.

You write it down because finally, when it's written down you do get it out of your system somewhat.