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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

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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  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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  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.

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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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  Eruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.

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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.

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

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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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  I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile?

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  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.

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  Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.

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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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  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.

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  Late bloomer’ is another way of saying ‘slow learner.

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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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  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.

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