The funny thing is, about the time I let go of any aspiration toward worldly success, that's about the time I started… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I think if you spend much time dwelling on influence you can get self-conscious about every line you write. That's a great… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
My first visit to Haiti was in May 1991, four months into the initial term of Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“This is what he truly envies of these people, the luxury of terror as a talking point, and at this moment he… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“How does anyone ever know anything—the past is a fog that breathes out ghost after ghost, the present a freeway thunder run… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
Democracy's premise rests on the notion that the collective wisdom of the majority will prove right more often than it's wrong; that… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I think I was lucky to come of age in a place and time - the American South in the 1960s and… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I'm a writer, not an editor, and though the editing rarely cut into my writing time, it did take away from that… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“He decides he wants both more and less. He’d like to hang out with Beyonce in a nice way, get to know… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I kept going back while I was writing the novel - which never sold, may it rest in peace - and by… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“He decides he wants both more or less. He’d like to hang with Beyonce in a nice way, get to know her… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“The singing triggers a soft detonation at his core, molten parts of him are flying everywhere and his ears ring to the tune of… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“Even harder was describing his sense that Shroom’s death might have ruined him for anything else, because when he died? when I felt his… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“Without ever exactly putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is standard trajectory. Something new appears in the world—a baby,… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“But I am scared. Everybody's scared." "You know what I mean, like scared scared. Like coward scared, like if you never went to begin… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“God knows the war sucks, but he sees no great appeal in these tepid peacetime lives.” — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“What he'd like to say is that he's lived it, if not the entire breadth and depth of the Christian faith then certainly the… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
By the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world. — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I started publishing stories in small magazines early on, but after seven or eight or nine years you feel like you need a little… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“I think sometimes nothing is better than something. I mean, I’d rather have nothing than let this guy use me like his bitch.” — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“No it was my choice. It's what I wanted to do. And I knew they'd probably send me to Iraq. It's not like anybody… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
It's amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course. — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
“As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory.” — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
