250 Quotes by Richard Ford

The most important things of your life can change so suddenly, so unrecoverably, that you can forget even the most important of them and their connections, you are so taken up by the chanciness of all’s that happened and by all that could and will happen next.

For writers – even sportswriters – bad news is always easier than good, since it is, after all, more familiar.

Sometimes we do not really become adults until after 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.

Greater challenges might only have frustrated him and rendered him unhappy.

Don’t let what your parents do disappoint you.

On writing: I don’t like doing this, but it feels so good when I stop.

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.

And since that is not how it has been for a long time, you want, this time, to make it last, this glistening one moment, this cool air, this new living, so that you can preserve a feeling of it, inasmuch as when it comes again it may just be too late. You may just be too old. And in truth, of course, this may be the last time that you will ever feel this way again.

Life’s passed along to us empty. We have to make up the happiness part.