"My hope is that the optimism is in the presentation. In other words, if somebody writes a good story about a sad situation, that’s inherently optimistic. I tried to take the long view, which is, on the day that I die—at 180 years old—I hope that the stuff I’ve left behind will be a full-bodied presentation of the full range of life. There are going to be times, in the world and in your personal life, when things seem hopeful, when you’re newly convinced of your potential to rise to negative occasions or you’re newly convinced that there are periods of heaven-like experience here on earth."
So said, author George Saunders, in an interview with Time Magazine entitled, "George Saunders Is Getting Comfortable With Ambiguous Storytelling." George was asked, "When we spoke eight years ago about your short-story collection Tenth of December, you said that you were starting to write in a more optimistic mode. But—as you point out—in reading these new stories, it seems like you aren’t there now."