George Saunders

So then I said, okay, I'm going to write a story like that.

And I went and wrote this story called The Wavemaker Falters, which is in our first book.

And the only, like, instruction was be funny.

That's it.

Be funny.

And then what I found out was if I'm trying to be funny, the meaning will arrive.

But I never knew that before.

I thought I had to know the meaning and have it all figured out.

Yes.

So if I'm just funny, I was funny, then weirdly all the stuff we're talking about just kind of –

economic challenges, that all came into the story as well, just unsummoned, you know, because I was concentrating on trying to be entertaining in some way.

So far, so good.

Knock on wood.

Three, please.

Um...

Well, I hate to say no, but I think the answer is no.

Yeah, I don't think it has.

And I tell my students, you know, if you have ambition, the worst thing you can do is deny it in an attempt to be a good person.

Because ambition is, you know, ambition, that word sounds like Gordon Gekko or whatever that guy's name is.

But ambition, if you took the name off it, it's kind of a love for life.