Ben Fountain Quotes

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

Ben Fountain

• Work
• Writing

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Quotes to Explore

• There is no planning. On the night it is really great, it's euphoria and if it is not so great there is always tomorrow night. That was his attitude.

  

  Ed McMahon
  • Great
  • Night
  • Attitude

• The nations of Africa, as is true of every continent of the world, from time to time dispute among themselves. These quarrels must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.

  

  Haile Selassie
  • Time
  • World
  • True

• I don't really desire things. I prefer to spend my money on experiences, on meals or travel.

  

  Rachel McAdams
  • Money
  • Desire
  • Travel

• The situation is quite serious - groundwater is important source for water use, including drinking water, and if it gets contaminated, it's very costly and difficult to clean.

  

  Ma Jun
  • Important
  • Water
  • Serious

• I'm never doing anything by rote. I'm only on thin ice, and I think that that's a good place to be. I feel like when you push yourself like that, the rewards can be pretty great.

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • Good
  • Great
  • Pretty

• I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.

  

  W. H. Auden
  • Acting
  • Looks
  • Get

• I've always found that no matter how much you spend on a movie - you can spend sixty dollars or sixty million dollars - if the movie's good, it's good.

  

  Dana Ashbrook
  • Good
  • Movie
  • You

• You would not believe how much time people waste in a day. And how little time they put into things they genuinely love.

  

  Hal Sparks
  • People
  • Time
  • Believe

• I just make up lyrics off the top of my head. A lot of times, there's a phrase I really like, and I kind of build the song around that.

  

  Washed Out
  • Up
  • Song
  • Kind

• Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.

  

  Randy Newman
  • Write
  • Stuff
  • Personal

• I studied the lives of jazz singers who would tour Europe, and... what I learned was life was big ride for them. They'd seen the dark side of humanity... but touring the world playing jazz, it was a truly carefree way of living. A great escapism, if you like.

  

  Gary Carr
  • Life
  • World
  • Great

• The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

  

  Walter Benjamin
  • Love
  • Hope
  • Person

• I did not want to go out at 5:30 in the morning with my stocking cap and my navy pea coat on and shoot lines and grades for the rest of my life.

  

  A. James Clark
  • Life
  • Morning
  • Rest

• Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

  

  Flannery O'Connor
  • Experience
  • Without
  • Makes

• While I was serving in the Florida Senate, American soldiers were being killed in Iraq, a war we should have never started, and often by Iranian proxies and their improvised explosive devices.

  

  Ted Deutch
  • American
  • War
  • Soldiers

• Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease.

  

  Karel Capek
  • World
  • Work
  • Men

• I constantly work at maintaining balance. For me, my family comes first. If my family is taken care of, then everything else usually falls into place.

  

  Faith Hill
  • Work
  • Family
  • Taken

• Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.

  

  Warren Bennis
  • World
  • Success
  • Learning

• I live in a fantasy world where I think I'm immune to all disease. I don't get sick and haven't had anything major go wrong.

  

  Jesse Spencer
  • World
  • Live
  • Sick

• I have a handicap in that English is not my first language. So even though I'm a writer, I don't write anymore because it's just harder in English.

  

  Patricia Riggen
  • English
  • Language
  • Write

• It's interesting how some songs really lend themselves to performance in a big public venue and performance by a band and so on, and so they're even more successful in that context than they were on the record.

  

  Walter Becker Steely Dan
  • Interesting
  • Band
  • Successful

• I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself.

  

  John le Carre
  • Up
  • World
  • Mood

• Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.

  

  Matt Taibbi
  • Good
  • Work
  • Real

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

  

  Ben Fountain
  • Work
  • Writing