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 FOUNTAINIt took me 10 years to write a story that pleased me – that I could look at after it was published and not cringe.
More Ben Fountain Quotes
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Eruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.
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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.
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By the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world.
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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.
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Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
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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.
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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.
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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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So many interlocking spirals of history, genetics, common cause, and struggle that it should be the most basic of all drives, that you would strive to protect and love one another, yet this bond that should be the big no-brainer was in fact the hardest thing.
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I never listen to music when I’m writing.
BEN FOUNTAIN