Richard Ford Quotes

It is no loss to mankind when one writer decides to call it a day. When a
tree falls in the forest, who cares but the monkeys?

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss
and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.

I had written all I was going to write, if the truth had been known, and there is nothing wrong with that. If more writers knew that, the world would be saved a lot of bad books, and more people-men and women alike-could go on to happier, more productive lives.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.

Dreaminess is, among other things, a state of suspended recognition, and a response to too much useless and complicated factuality. Its symptoms can be a long-term interest in the weather, or a sustained soaring feeling, or a bout of the stares that you sometimes can not even know about except in retrospect, when the time may seem fogged.

What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.

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.

I know you can dream your way through an otherwise fine life, and never wake up, which is what I almost did.

...to encounter me now at age sixty-six is to be unable to imagine me at fifteen...

People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are.

What's friendship's realest measure?
I'll tell you. The amount of precious time you'll squander on someone else's calamities and fuck-ups.

Someone ... tell us what's important, because we no longer know.

With imagination, you can put something where nothing was.