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 realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write. — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract.… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
After Bush was elected in 2004 - please note that I didn't say 're-elected' - and I was walking around in my… — 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
From about the age of 15 or 16 I'd had the notion that I wanted to write fiction, and I'd done enough… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
The smartest thing I did in law school: asking my future wife to go out dancing with me. The smartest thing I… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
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
It took me 10 years to write a story that pleased me - that I could look at after it was published… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly -… — 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
I thought when I started writing that I'd have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent… — Ben Fountain Copy Share Image
I took two fiction-writing courses in college and majored in literature. I felt that I had a knack though I wouldn't go… — 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
The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work. — 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
If you want to write, then write; if you don't want to write, then don't write. I fell into the former category,… — 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
