Famous Quotes

"I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar."

George Saunders on Birthday

More quotes about Birthday

• "God gave us the gift of life it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."

  Voltaire on Birthday

• "The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."

  Oprah Winfrey on Birthday

• "My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me."

  Jim Valvano on Birthday

• "I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity."

  Eleanor Roosevelt on Birthday

• "The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance."

  Brian Tracy on Birthday

More quotes by George Saunders

• "We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish."

• "My habit would have been to veer towards the dark - to prove I was something edgy, or maybe to prove that I was cognisant of the dark side. Now, with age and confidence, I can say, yeah, that's true, but I am cognisant of the fact that people can do things well. And can be more loving than you expect."

• "I still believe that capitalism is too harsh and I believe that, even within that, there is a lot of satisfaction and beauty if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, although that doesn't eradicate the reality of the suffering. It's all true at once, kind of humming and sublime."

• "I'm finding, as I get older, that I'm not much of a believer in redemption. I mean, I believe in redemption in real life - redemption does happen, and it's cool when it does - but I find myself getting leery of my desire for it in stories (especially my own)."

• "The cool parts - the parts that have won Dubai its reputation as 'the Vegas of the Middle East' or 'the Venice of the Middle East' or 'the Disney World of the Middle East, if Disney World were the size of San Francisco and out in a desert' - have been built in the last ten years."