The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that’s where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don’t come home your best self.

Saunders frames his delayed literary “break” as a gift: because early success didn’t arrive, he spent years in ordinary, often exhausting jobs (notably in engineering-related workplaces). That experience supplied the moral and social texture that later defines his fiction—people trying to be decent while pressed by economic systems, deadlines, fatigue, and fear. The phrase “capitalism and grace” captures a central Saunders tension: institutional incentives that narrow empathy versus sudden, human moments of kindness or ethical awakening. His final line underscores how material conditions shape character; chronic stress and scarcity can erode one’s capacity to act generously, making compassion not just a virtue but a resource that can be depleted.