George Saunders

Nobody should take credit.

We're just these vessels that live out sort of karma, you know, and therefore the only thing to do is to be kind and comfort one another.

That's her view.

There's a Frenchman who died in the 1800s whose view is not that.

He's a kind of a vengeful presence.

So those two throughout the book are kind of going back and forth over how to approach this sinner in the bed.

And so those are the two viewpoints I kept trying to like refine and

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes like you, I'd like for a hammer to drop on them at the end of their life.

But I think for the most part, and just look at my own heart, when I've been in sync with truth, I felt better.

And when I was not in sync with truth, I felt poorly.

That might be the only judgment that takes place in this sphere.

And as for what happens next, I don't know.

In the book, in that last 15 or 20 pages, I got a lot of surprises, things that I was kind of rooting for didn't happen, things that came out of nowhere and surprised me.

So for me, that's the beauty of the writing process is

It's almost like something rises up out of me that's a little smarter, a little more fair, a little more curious, and hovers over the desk for a while.

And the theory is, the reader's over there, the book urges that little spirit-like thing out of him as well, and the two things merge.

So you get this brief period of rarefied communication.

that weirdly seems to inspire a suite of really nice things like a little more empathy, a little more engagement, a little more patience.

So I kind of live for the moment when that little spirit comes out of me and I can stop being this guy and be him for 12 minutes.