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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?

Ben Fountain

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

America Country Giant
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
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
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
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
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
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 FOUNTAIN

Funny Go Letting Things 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
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Life Struggle Things Thinking
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 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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Consider Hour Law Writing
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Moments Perfection World
The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Art Real Theater
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
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
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Feet Fun People

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 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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