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

Ben Fountain

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
Eruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.
BEN FOUNTAIN

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

Chamber Choral Music Writing
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 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
I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Honest Trying Writing
The smartest thing I did in law school: asking my future wife to go out dancing with me. The smartest thing I did when practicing law: quitting. The smartest thing I’ve done in writing: following my own head and writing what I wanted to write, and nothing but.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Law Quit School Smarter 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
I started publishing stories in small magazines early on, but after seven or eight or nine years you feel like you need a little more than that to show for your efforts.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Effort Eight Years
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
It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Day Honored Worst
Maybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.
BEN FOUNTAIN

Ends Light Tunnel
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
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

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

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

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