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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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  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.

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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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  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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  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 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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  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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