George Saunders

And I remember sitting at that desk reading Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, and trying to write like that and, you know, and had some heartbreaks and had a death in the family and just really intense.

And there was something very wild about being almost 70.

and standing there and going, okay, so what that kid wanted to do, you kind of did it.

And then just feeling those two people juxtaposed like that.

I can't really quite describe it.

It's funny, I started late.

The first book didn't come out until I was 38.

So I feel like I'm really racing to make the most of what talent I have and trying to do really good work in whatever time is left.

But in that early time, one of the things that was so beautiful about it was that I had gotten everything

like my stupid dreams of being a prodigy were just obviously not going to happen.

And so for the first time, it was kind of like, all right, what if you don't have any writing career?

What if you don't have anything at which you're particularly great at?

You're just a, you know, just a good, hopefully a good father and husband.

And in that space, it was really, I found that there was plenty, plenty to live for and to live happily for.

And that was a kind of a

I think I'd always secretly thought I was kind of shallow in that way, that I was all ambition.

And to find out that actually even pretty much shorn of that, I still liked being alive and still felt a lot of, you know, happiness.

And like, oh, all right, well, I'm still okay.

You know, that was very sweet.