Quotes by Writing I never listen to music when I'm writing. Ben Fountain choral-musicchamber-musicwriting 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. Ben Fountain cuttingwritingthinking I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile? At a certain point I decided to keep on because I felt like the work was getting better, and I was taking great pleasure in that. Ben Fountain riskselfwriting I really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly - for about six hours - considered going to get my MBA, but in the end, I realized that the only work I really wanted to do was write. Ben Fountain mbalawwriting 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 lawwritingschool I thought when I started writing that I'd have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn't going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself. Ben Fountain writingbookyears I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write. Ben Fountain honestwritingtrying 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. Ben Fountain writingbookyears I kept going back while I was writing the novel - which never sold, may it rest in peace - and by the time it was finished I had too many connections to Haiti to walk away. Ben Fountain rest-in-peaceconnectionswriting 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. Ben Fountain funny-thingsletting-gowriting 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. Ben Fountain decisionwantwriting From about the age of 15 or 16 I'd had the notion that I wanted to write fiction, and I'd done enough in college to satisfy myself that I had a knack for it - I wouldn't call it "talent" - though I wondered if I'd ever have the guts to actually commit to it. Ben Fountain collegeagewriting When I listen to Airplanes record, it takes me back. I remember a lot of my thought processes when I was 20 or 21, writing those songs and recording that record. I wonder what I was thinking when I was trying to say a particular thing. I hear some of the weird little nuances in the recording; I can hear what the room sounded like. I remember what it smelled like. I can remember sitting up in guitarist Chris Walla's bedroom and for the first time in my life having this realization like, "Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can make music that in some capacity people will enjoy and come see me play." Ben Gibbard airplanewritingsong More times than not, it's a failed endeavor. You will fail more times than you succeed. But I think you need those failed endeavors. Ben Gibbard writingneedsthinking For me, a song doesn't really take flight until it has a lyric on it. ...Without a lyric that I'm happy with, it could be the greatest song ever melodically or arrangement-wise, but it doesn't have any resonance. Ben Gibbard wisewritingsong If you tell certain people that you like Kerouac, they assume that's all you read, like you don't know anything else about literature. I recognize all the things that people dislike about the way he writes - his tone and the sentimentality of it all. But those books were there for me at a very important point in my life. Ben Gibbard writingbookpeople I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs. Ben Gibbard wantwritingsong As a songwriter, I'm not necessarily writing about myself or my life. Ben Gibbard songwriterswriting I like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of 'Plans' came out of samples and vocal lines. Ben Gibbard pianolineswriting You spend hours alone, only with your thoughts, and you torture yourself. It's a tendency of many writers to temper the self-destructive act of writing with other self-destructive acts. I certainly was one of those people for a long time. Ben Gibbard selfwritinglong«134135136137138139140141142143144»
