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I got brilliant stories from people who'd never set foot in an MFA program and had published very little, and terrible stories from people who'd published a lot and had all the credentials. It was all over the map and that was part of the fun.

Ben Fountain

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Ben Fountain
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 1
Fiction Writer
Novelist
Writer
NC
United States
People
Terrible
Fun
Feet
Credentials
Stories
Published
Part
Maps
Littles
Foot
Little
Brilliant
Never
Program

More quotes by Ben Fountain

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It took me 10 years to write a story that pleased me - that I could look at after it was published and not cringe.
Ben Fountain
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You have the mainstream bourgeois life of the U.S., Europe, the developed world - the life of technology, education, mortgages, careers, a certain level of physical comfort - while on the other hand, several billion people on the planet exist on less than a dollar a day. That's a huge and terrible reality to get your head around.
Ben Fountain
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There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.
Ben Fountain
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I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.
Ben Fountain
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Maybe the light's at the other end of the tunnel.
Ben Fountain
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The smartest thing I did in law school: asking my future wife to go out dancing with me. The smartest thing I did when practicing law: quitting. The smartest thing I've done in writing: following my own head and writing what I wanted to write, and nothing but.
Ben Fountain
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The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.
Ben Fountain
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From about the age of 15 or 16 I'd had the notion that I wanted to write fiction, and I'd done enough in college to satisfy myself that I had a knack for it - I wouldn't call it talent - though I wondered if I'd ever have the guts to actually commit to it.
Ben Fountain
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I never listen to music when I'm writing.
Ben Fountain
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I thought when I started writing that I'd have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn't going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself.
Ben Fountain
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If you want to write, then write if you don't want to write, then don't write. I fell into the former category, and I just made the decision that I'd keep on because I liked it and might someday do something decent.
Ben Fountain
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Haiti is unique - the first successful slave revolt in history, the first black republic etc., and then when you get into the culture, the voodoo, and that wonderful synchretization of Christian and African belief and symbology, it's like nothing the world has ever seen.
Ben Fountain
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It's amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.
Ben Fountain
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I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.
Ben Fountain
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If a person wants to be of any use to himself, he better insist on getting his fair share of beauty and pleasure, and if there's something about the system that's keeping him from getting his share, then I think he's well within his rights to fight to change that.
Ben Fountain
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I kept going back while I was writing the novel - which never sold, may it rest in peace - and by the time it was finished I had too many connections to Haiti to walk away.
Ben Fountain
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Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.
Ben Fountain
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Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
Ben Fountain
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I think if you spend much time dwelling on influence you can get self-conscious about every line you write. That's a great way to freeze up.
Ben Fountain
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I'm ashamed and embarrassed to say that I've read very little of David Foster Wallace's work. It's a huge gap in my education, one of many.
Ben Fountain