The funny thing is, about the time I let go of any aspiration toward worldly success, that’s about the time I started writing decent work.
BEN FOUNTAINI never listen to music when I’m writing.
More Ben Fountain Quotes
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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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Late bloomer’ is another way of saying ‘slow learner.
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Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.
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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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Maybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.
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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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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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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 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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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 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.
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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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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 never listen to music when I’m writing.
BEN FOUNTAIN