Ben Fountain Quotes

You can’t control what other people think about your art. Think about the part of yourself that you can control, which is your ability to be kind and loving and creative.

As soon as I accepted that I am this kind of writer and I happen to live here, and stopped going to meetings and stopped beating myself up because I wasn't making a ton of money writing for some stupid sitcom, I felt really at home.

I was going to be a comedian but then also winning Oscars and directing movies and creating my own charities and saving the world. The more I've let go of that... I see more access to possibly being able to have something like that.

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.

Every time I try to disown that concept for myself, which is a really healthy perspective, they bring it back all the time. It's so serious and so real and so tangible that you don't want to taint it with anything other than the thing itself. I was tickled pink with my very zen self, walking around saying that I made a record because I wanted to make a record. That's so beautiful. It's like a haiku poem. That takes away all the tension and the expectation. I just want to try to do something interesting.

Today I finally overcame tryin’ to fit the world inside a picture frame.

Your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world.

One of the most important reasons for living is to do something - live outside of yourself and put together an idea, an idea that you want to explore and then complete... Awaken your creative sensitivities!

I'm not worried any more about changing people's view of me.

I feel, as an artist, I should be able to express who I am and the things I come from, and the places I want to also be.

When I stopped hiding who I am, I started writing hits.

It's been fun. I've had a lucky life. Art has made me pull the best out of myself.

I never cared about money or fame, and I don't care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows.

You're successful if you can get one person to pick it up and put it on the turntable and go, Wow, thanks for writing that!

I don't think the goal is, 'How big a star did you ever become?' I think the goal is, 'Were you able to express yourself?'

My greatest desire was to be in a sandbox with Kevin Kline or Kenneth Branagh - to be with the people I admired - and I have.

I vividly remember being 14. That was the age when I started to get happy: I started being a writer and stopped being a loser.

The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.

I just write songs from the heart, and you never know who'll like the songs. I try to make sure that I don't allow anybody's expectation to weigh on me. I have my own expectation of life. I believe in letting people be free.

In the beginning, I didn't have to love them, my acts. It was mostly about being successful, getting a trophy, and making some money. Now if I don't love the idea of it, I don't work on it.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Welcome every talent, hail every invention, cherish every gem of art—foster every gleam of authorship, honor every acquirement and every natural gift, lift ourselves to the level of our destinies...

I'd like to think you don't stop being creative once you get happy.

I'm really happy when I'm actively creating things. When I'm frustrated and not excited, it's because I haven't written anything in a month or so.