Top Ben Fountain Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Ben Fountain Biography

Ben Fountain (born 1958) is an American fiction writer currently living in Dallas, Texas. He has won many awards including a PEN/Hemingway award for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories (2007) and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for his debut novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2012).

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Ben Fountain Quotes

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

Eruption, Everything, Haiti, Spite, Talent

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.

Moments, Perfection, Transparency, World

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.

Book, Writing, Years, Contract, Point

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.

Brilliant, Feet, Fun, Map, People, Set

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.

Family, Love, Protect, Struggle, Things In Life, Thinking

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

Long, Want, Polite, Americans, Incredibly

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.

Change, Fight, Fighting, Rights, Think, Thinking

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.

Ashamed, Education, Foster, Gaps, Littles, Work

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.

Early, Effort, Eight, Like, Small, Years

The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.

Art, Beauty, Real, Theater

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.

Boss, Emotional, Mental, Mind, Person, Soul

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.

1960S, 70S, Car, Life, Taken, Thinking

It took me 10 years to write a story that pleased me - that I could look at after it was published and not cringe.

Cringe, Looks, Story, Write, Writing, Years

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.

Funny, Funny Things, Let, Letting Go, Toward, Writing

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.

African, Christian, Successful, Synchretization, Unique

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.

Decision, Keep, Liked, Want, Write, Writing

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.

Writing, College, Two, Took, Eventually

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.

Cutting, Editor, Take, Think, Thinking, Writing

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

Figure, Gone, Long, Way

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

Country, America, Giants, Attached, Way

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