“ No it was my choice. It's what I wanted to do. And I knew they'd probably send me to Iraq. It's not like anybody lied to me."She groans. "Billy, all these mofos ever do is lie. You think if they halfw… Ben Fountain
“ America loves to pray, God knows. America prays and prays and prays, it is the land of unchained prayer, and all this ceremonial praying is hard on Billy. Ben Fountain
“ It has been a frustrating game thus far and [the natives] blow off steam by spending money. Happily there is retail at every turn so the crow doesn’t lack for buying opportunities, and it’s the same e… Ben Fountain
“ Much of life, fatherhood included, is the story of knowledge acquired too late: if only I’d known then what I know now, how much smarter, abler, stronger, I would have been. But nothing really prepare… Ben Fountain
“ Ultimately, culture, secular and otherwise, is a collection of survival strategies. The things that look like decoration—poetry, novels, music, dancing—if you strip away all the layers, are mechanisms… Ben Fountain
“ ...he wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near the… Ben Fountain
“ As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory. Ben Fountain
“ So what does it mean for a person to devote himself or herself to, as you put it, “literary reading and thinking”? I would argue this is a person who’s trying to see things for what they are. Who’s in… Ben Fountain
“ Why?' He kept asking in his sweetly belling voice, its tone as pure as marbles swirled around a crystal pail. Why him wun up the tree? Why him nest up theah? Why him gadder nuts? Why? Why? Why? And Bi… Ben Fountain
