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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

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

Law Quit School Smarter Writing
I really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly – for about six hours – considered going to get my MBA, but in the end, I realized that the only work I really wanted to do was write.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Consider Hour Law Writing
At a certain point I decided to keep on because I felt like the work was getting better, and I was taking great pleasure in that.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Certain Felt Keep Pleasure Points
By the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Eye World Writing
If you could figure out how to live with family then you’d gone a long way toward finding your peace.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Gone Long Way
I never listen to music when I’m writing.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Chamber Choral Music Writing
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

Age College Writing
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

Connection Peace Rest Writing
It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Day Honored Worst
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

Fighting Rights Thinking
You’d think family would be the one sure thing in life, the gimme? Points you got just for being born? So much thick, meaty stuff bound you to these people.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Life Struggle Things Thinking
It’s amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Courses Natural Sticks
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

Moments Perfection World
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

Ashamed Gaps Littles
I took two fiction-writing courses in college and majored in literature. I felt that I had a knack though I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a talent. But it scared me. I felt it was a childish thing wanting to write and that I would forget about it eventually.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Call College Literature Two Writing
Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Long Polite Want

I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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