123 Quotes by Ben Fountain

There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.

You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and bitter presence, but you're still stuck with the son of a bitch. One way or another he'll always be your daddy, not even all-powerful death was going to change that.

At the door to the locker room Dime asks [Ennis] to autograph his ball. Ennis rears back. He's chuckling but his eyes are wary. 'Why you want that? I'm just an old equipment hand, nobody cares about my autograph.''As far as I'm concerned you run the team,' Dime answers, so Ennis laughs and takes the Sharpie and signs his name to Dime's ball, and this will be the only autograph that Dime collects today.

Life in the Army is miserable that way. You fuck up, they scream at you, you fuck up some more and they scream some more, but overlying all the small, petty, stupid, basically foreordained fuckups looms the ever-present prospect of the life-fucking fuckup, a fuckup so profound and all-encompassing as to crush all hope of redemption.

We were at the White House a couple of weeks ago," the man says, "they had a state dinner for Prince Charles and Camilla. Listen, those royals are just the finest people, no pretensions to them whatsoever. You can talk to Prince Charles about anything." Billy nods. There's a silence. Just in time he asks, "What did you talk about?" "Hunting," the man answers.

[T]hey know they’re being good when they thank the troops and their eyes shimmer with love for themselves and this tangible proof of their goodness.

Let me just say, we call Iraq the abnormal normal, 'cause over there the weirdest stuff is just everyday life.

Billy ha il sospetto che i suoi connazionali in segreto la sappiano ben più lunga, ma nel paese si è creata una fissazione per il melodramma adolescenziale, per le più teatrali rappresentazioni di innocenza stuprata e i confortanti fanghi termali della pietà autoassolutoria.

Cos'è che vogliono? Si rendono conto di essere vivi? Come se la prolungata e intensa esposizione alla morte fosse la condizione necessaria per partecipare appieno della propria vita.