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Book: Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
Quotes of Book: Congratulations, By the Way:
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  1. George Saunders _ Congratulations, By the Way:

    I can look back and see that I've spent much of my life in a cloud of things that have tended to push "being kind" to the periphery. Things like: Anxiety. Fear. Insecurity. Ambition. The mistaken belief that enough accomplishment will rid me of all that anxiety, fear, insecurity, and ambition. The belief that if I can only accrue enough -- enough accomplishment, money, fame -- my neuroses will disappear.
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  2. George Saunders _ Congratulations, By the Way:

    One thing in our favor: some of this "becoming kinder" happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish - how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we're not separate, and don't want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away {someday, a long time from now}. Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was "mostly Love, now.
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  3. George Saunders _ Congratulations, By the Way:

    Still, accomplishment is unreliable. "Succeeding," whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself {success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it}, and there's the very real danger that "succeeding" will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.
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  4. George Saunders _ Congratulations, By the Way:

    When young, we're anxious - understandably - to find out if we've got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you - in particular you, of this generation - may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can . . .And this is actually O.K. If we're going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously - as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.Still, accomplishment is unreliable. "Succeeding," whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself {success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it}, and there's the very real danger that "succeeding" will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.
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  5. George Saunders _ Congratulations, By the Way:

    Or to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most feelings of warmth?Those who were kindest to you, I bet.It's a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I'd say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.
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