George Saunders

And so we would – it was a family-run business.

And so it was very sometimes stressful because people would come in, and if it wasn't going well, it was me and my mom, my dad, my two sisters were working.

So I think I just learned that love of –

When in doubt, work, you know.

A student told me once, he was doing a paper on Carl Sandburg.

Maybe it was Robert Frost.

But anyway, a student, the story is that at a seminar, a poet asked Frost, let's say, you know, this big complicated question about the sonnet.

And Frost supposedly said, young man, don't worry, work.

And that's what I took away from that first job was when in doubt, like there'd be times where, you know, we were so crowded and we were kind of messing it up.

And the only way to get out of that was to close your mind and work, you know.

And I saw my dad and mom were very hard workers and I'd see them hustling, you know.

And it was really a bonding thing.

So, yeah, so I think that was the biggest thing was that you can sometimes –

And this is certainly true artistically.

You can be in a position where you don't see any possible escape.

It's just a screwed-up story or a screwed-up novel.

Then at that point, what you do is you say there's only one doorway out, and that's through work, you know, revising and stuff.

And then what's beautiful is sometimes this miraculous fix can appear that you never in a million years could have thought your way to or aspired your way to, but you can only work your way to it, you know.

So, yeah.

I mean, I'm 18 years old.