250 Quotes by Richard Ford

I’m not a great hoper, Wade, I guess.” We’re not walking fast. Others pass us. “I just go in for generic hopes. That good comes to me, that I do little harm and die in my sleep.

Only sometimes you can’t feel anything about a subject without hypothesizing its extinction.

You’re only good if you can do bad and decide not to.

I don’t know what makes people do what they do, or call themselves what they call themselves, only that you have to live someone’s life to be the expert.

Towns aren’t even towns anymore,” Vicki said, sensing my distraction with this sad evolution, and giving me a hug around my middle. “Dallas wasn’t ever one, when you get right down to it. It’s just a suburb looking for a place to light.

Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren’t smart.

Together – though perhaps only together – they were fully formed. They stayed on the road. Life went on as it had, from the thirties straight into the forties. They owned little – a bit of furniture, their clothes, no car.

It was if we all sensed we’d be gone someday soon in a sudden instant – often it happened in the middle of the night – and didn’t want to get involved. Or else it was that none of us wanted to know anybody later on who was the way we were now.

The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, ‘Am I doing something that’s worthwhile?’ Because even if you fail at it, you know that it’s worth doing.