Ben Fountain Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.

  Ben Fountain

  Worst, Worst Day, Honored

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.109, Canongate Books

  6 Copy quote

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

  Ben Fountain

  Country, America, Giants

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.161, Canongate Books

  8 Copy quote

• Late bloomer' is another way of saying 'slow learner.

  Ben Fountain

  Way, Late, Learners

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Letting Go, Writing, Funny Things

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  4 Copy quote

• Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.

  Ben Fountain

  Long, Want, Polite

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.36, Canongate Books

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, School, Law

  52 Copy quote

• By the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world.

  Ben Fountain

  Writing, Eye, World

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Law, Mba

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Years, Looks

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Fun, Feet, People

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  6 Copy quote

• The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch.

  Ben Fountain

  New York, Eye, Cities

  7 Copy quote

• I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.

  Ben Fountain

  Writing, Trying, Honest

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Perfection, World, Moments

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.77, Canongate Books

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, College, Two

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, Writing, Years

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think I was lucky to come of age in a place and time - the American South in the 1960s and '70s - when the machine hadn't completely taken over life. The natural world was still the world, and machines - TV, telephone, cars - were still more or less ancillary, and computers were unheard of in everyday life.

  Ben Fountain

  Taken, Thinking, Car

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Littles, Gaps, Ashamed

  "Interview with Ben Fountain, Author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk". Interview with Teddy Wayne, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 30, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Self

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  4 Copy quote

• I never listen to music when I'm writing.

  Ben Fountain

  Writing, Chamber Music, Choral Music

  6 Copy quote

• 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? 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

  Writing, Self, Risk

  4 Copy quote

• Maybe the light's at the other end of the tunnel.

  Ben Fountain

  Tunnels, Light, Ends

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.179, Canongate Books

  4 Copy quote

• 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, 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

  Struggle, Thinking, Things In Life

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.77, Canongate Books

  4 Copy quote

• If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.

  Ben Fountain

  Long, Gone, Way

  Ben Fountain (2012). “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk”, p.76, Canongate Books

  4 Copy quote

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin