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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.

Ben Fountain

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

Chamber Choral Music Writing
It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Day Honored Worst
Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Long Polite Want
Maybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Ends Light Tunnel
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
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
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
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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Age College 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
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
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
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
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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