250 Quotes by Richard Ford

I do not hold to the old belief that professors like writers because they can see us fail in a grander and sillier and therefore more unequivocal way than they have. On the contrary, they like to see someone trying, giving it all up to set a permanent mark.

Maybe I’m a serial regional writer. First here, then there, across the map.

Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.

The persuasive power of normal life is extravagant. To accept less than life when less is not overwhelmingly upon you is – at least for some – unacceptable.

It was such a thing to see, a view I had never seen and have not since.

It’s odd, though, what makes you think about the truth. It’s so rarely involved in the events of your life. I quit thinking about the truth for a time then. Its finer points seems impossible to find among the facts.

I think once you love somebody, you love somebody; that’s just how it is.

I’m a verb, Frank. Verbs don’t answer questions.

And there are words, significant words, you do not want to say, words that account for busted-up lives, words that try to fix something ruined that shouldn’t be ruined and no one wanted ruined, and that words can’t fix anyway. Telling.