If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.
Ben FountainI realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.
Ben FountainI 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 FountainBy the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world.
Ben FountainYou have the mainstream bourgeois life of the U.S., Europe, the "developed" world - the life of technology, education, mortgages, careers, a certain level of physical comfort - while on the other hand, several billion people on the planet exist on less than a dollar a day. That's a huge and terrible reality to get your head around.
Ben Fountain