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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

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

Day Honored Worst
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
Maybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Ends Light Tunnel
I started publishing stories in small magazines early on, but after seven or eight or nine years you feel like you need a little more than that to show for your efforts.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Effort Eight Years
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

Contract Law Quit Took
The funny thing is, about the time I let go of any aspiration toward worldly success, that’s about the time I started writing decent work.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Funny Go Letting Things Writing
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
Eruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Country Everything Talent
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
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
I never listen to music when I’m writing.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Chamber Choral Music Writing
The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Art Real Theater
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

Category Decision Writing
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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