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

Ben Fountain

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

Chamber Choral Music Writing
Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.
BEN FOUNTAIN

America Country Giant
I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Contract Law Quit Took
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
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
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 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
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
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 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.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Call College Literature Two Writing
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
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

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

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

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Popular Authors

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