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

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

Ben Fountain

Related Topics

GoneLongWay

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More Ben Fountain Quotes

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  Maybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.

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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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• 

  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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  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.

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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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• 

  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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• 

  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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• 

  I never listen to music when I’m writing.

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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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• 

  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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• 

  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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  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.

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• 

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

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• 

  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.

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• 

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

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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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