Richard Ford quotes

Richard Ford is an acclaimed American novelist and short story writer best known for his works exploring themes of modern American life. His novel "Independence Day" won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is recognized for his insightful characterization and nuanced portrayal of ordinary people. Here are 59 of his quotes:

Some idiotic things are well worth doing. (Richard Ford)
Some people want to be bank presidents. Other people want to rob banks. View quote
Richard Ford
If you lose all hope, you can always find it again. View quote
Richard Ford
One day you think you never even made a choice and then you have to make one, even a wrong one, just so you're sure you're still able. And once that's over, you can go back and be happy again with what you were before you started worrying. View quote
Richard Ford
People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are. I mean, do you actually realize how much adult conversation is spent on this fuckin business? Facts treated like they were opinions just for the simple purpose of talking about it longer? Some people might think that's interesting, bub, but I'll tell you. It's romanticizing a goddamn rock by calling it a mountain range to me. People waste a helluva lot of time they could be putting to useful purposes. This is a game. See it and forget about it. View quote
Richard Ford
What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly. View quote
Richard Ford
Married life requires shared mystery even when all the facts are known. View quote
Richard Ford
It's interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Leaving reminds us of what we can part with and what we can't, then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about. View quote
Richard Ford
Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married. View quote
Richard Ford
There's a lot to be said for doing what you're not supposed to do, and the rewards of doing what you're supposed to do are more subtle and take longer to become apparent, which maybe makes it less attractive. But your life is the blueprint you make after the building is built. View quote
Richard Ford
This is how you knew what a fool was-someone who didn't know what mattered to him in the long run. (Richard Ford)
Sometimes we do not really become adults until we suffer a good whacking loss, and our lives in a sense catch up with us and wash over us like a wave and everything goes. View quote
Richard Ford
Her complexion seemed slowly to be losing its olive color, and the set of her mouth hardened as though interior shifts were taking place she herself didn't know about but which had already corrected her outlook toward the rest of the world. View quote
Richard Ford
Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that. View quote
Richard Ford
Things you did. Things you never did. Things you dreamed. After a long time they run together. View quote
Richard Ford
I know you can dream your way through an otherwise fine life, and never wake up, which is what I almost did. View quote
Richard Ford
You're only good if you can do bad and decide not to. View quote
Richard Ford
Our ex-wifes always harbour secrets about us that make them irresistable. Until, of course, we remember who we are and what we did and why we are not married anymore. View quote
Richard Ford
Humans generally get out the gist of what they need to say right at the beginning, then spend forever qualifying, contradicting, burnishing or taking important things back. Yor rareley miss anything by cutting most people off after two sentences. View quote
Richard Ford
"I'm not worried," I said. And I wasn't, because I thought things would be fine. And even though I was wrong, it is still not so bad a way to set your mind toward the unknown just when you are coming into the face of it. View quote
Richard Ford
It's probably nice to know your parents were once not your parents. (Richard Ford)
In the fall of 1960, when I was sixteen and my father was for a time not working, my mother met a man named Warren Miller and fell in love with him. View quote
Richard Ford
You can get carried away with how things were once, and not how you need to make them better. View quote
Richard Ford
But when you are older, nothing you did when you were young matters at all. I know that now, though I didn't know it then. We were simply young. View quote
Richard Ford
When you are sixteen you do not know what your parents know, or much of what they understand, and less of what's in their hearts. This can save you from becoming an adult too early, save your life from becoming only theirs lived over again - which is a loss. But to shield yourself - as I didn't do - seems to be an even greater error, since what's lost is the truth of your parents' life and what you should think about it, and beyond that, how you should estimate the world you are about to live in. View quote
Richard Ford

Richard Ford

Richard Ford - Image
Photo: Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 3.0
Occupation: American Novelist
Born: February 16, 1944
Quotes count: 59
Wikipedia: Richard Ford

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