Latest Ben Fountain Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I'm a writer, not an editor, and though the editing rarely cut into my writing time, it did take away from that walking-around-thinking-about-it-when-you're-not-thinking-about-it time that I think is important for writers. When you're half-thinking about what you're working on while driving, cooking . . . just letting things sift and settle, come to you.

  Ben Fountain

  Writing, Cutting, Thinking

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• 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

• 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, Thinking, Rights

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• A person deprived of beauty and pleasure puts me in mind of the Haitian notion of a zombie - a person disconnected from his or her soul, a person who works for others' profit but never his own, a person who mindlessly does the bidding of the boss and exists in an emotional and mental limbo.

  Ben Fountain

  Emotional, Boss, Soul

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• 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

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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

  Ben Fountain

  Eruption, Haiti, Talent

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• You have the mainstream bourgeois life of the U.S., Europe, the "developed" world - the life of technology, education, mortgages, careers, a certain level of physical comfort - while on the other hand, several billion people on the planet exist on less than a dollar a day. That's a huge and terrible reality to get your head around.

  Ben Fountain

  Technology, Reality, Hands

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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

  Ben Fountain

  Sticks, Natural, Courses

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• I kept going back while I was writing the novel - which never sold, may it rest in peace - and by the time it was finished I had too many connections to Haiti to walk away.

  Ben Fountain

  Rest In Peace, Writing, Connections

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• 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

• 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

• 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

  Writing, Decision, Want

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

  Eight, Years, Effort

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

• 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

• 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

• 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

  Writing, College, Age

  Source: www.raintaxi.com