That seems to me part of the magic of fiction because in fiction I can make a person that I really don’t like, like this guy in the book, he’s a stinker, but then through the kind of weird side door of trying to make the language about him more interesting, you you start sinking through the levels of his stuff and pretty soon, I don’t know if you like them, [but] like and dislike become almost useless phrases. You are him. You have been him. And then that beautiful thing where, I think specificity negates judgment. So as I work harder and harder to know that guy through the things he’s said and done and seen and remembers, my sense of wanting to judge him just […] seems juvenile. Anybody can judge. Let’s just go deeper and deeper. And I really cherish that feeling. And of course, it doesn’t last beyond the page. And I’m sure if I met his real life corally I’d be sneering at him, but what a blessing, you know, to for a few minutes a day kind of ascend up out of your habit.

— George Saunders in David Marchese’s, George Saunders Says Breaking These 3 Delusions Can Save You, The Interview, 2026