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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.

Ben Fountain

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
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

Looks Writing Years
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

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

Day Honored Worst
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Certain Felt Keep Pleasure Points
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’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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Ashamed Gaps Littles
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?
BEN FOUNTAIN

Risk Self Writing
It’s amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Courses Natural Sticks
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Self Thinking Writing
I thought when I started writing that I’d have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Book Writing Years
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Another Common Drive Genetics History Protect
Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Long Polite Want
I never listen to music when I’m writing.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Chamber Choral Music Writing

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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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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Popular Authors

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