Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Ben Fountain

Image
It's amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.
Ben Fountain
Image
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
Image
Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.
Ben Fountain
Image
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
Image
Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
Ben Fountain
Image
The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.
Ben Fountain
Image
Maybe the light's at the other end of the tunnel.
Ben Fountain
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I never listen to music when I'm writing.
Ben Fountain
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.
Ben Fountain
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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