What George Saunders thinks about energy

@george-saunders · 10 positions · On ppll ↗

American short-story writer and novelist, author of Tenth of December and Lincoln in the Bardo, and a teacher of fiction at Syracuse for thirty years. He runs Story Club, a Substack about how stories actually work.

George Saunders did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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1 dated position, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what George Saunders has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 9 Jul 2026

   Our readingThere is no separate class of natural-born artists: the artistic impulse is ordinary curiosity about life turned into a wish to make someone else feel something.

   curiosity

   Their wordsI think of it like this: any person has an innate curiosity about life, and an energy toward it, that may manifest itself in all kinds of ways throughout the course of their life.

   ↗The Natural-Born Artist.georgesaunders.substack.com 1st of 4 in this piece