Ben Fountain Quotes

After Bush was elected in 2004 - please note that I didn't say 're-elected' - and I was walking around in my befuzzed state of confusion and low-grade depression, I set out more or systematically to read writers who'd grappled with that fundamental question of what America is, why it is the way it is.

Ben Fountain

• Why
• America
• Question

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

Ben Fountain

• Work
• Writing

I never listen to music when I'm writing.

Ben Fountain

• Music
• 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.

Ben Fountain

• Writing
• College
• Literature

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

• Work
• Education

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
• Done

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

• Up
• Time
• Great

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

Ben Fountain

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

• Life
• Time
• World