250 Quotes by Richard Ford

The saved moment is the true art of love.

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

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

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.

We do not, after all, deal in truths, only potentialities. Too much truth can be worse than death, and last longer.

I'm intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite.

It's odd to imagine, of course: you pass a car on a lonely rural highway; you sit beside a man in a diner and share views with him; you wait behind a customer checking into a motel, a friendly man with a winning smile and twinkling hazel eyes, who's happy to fill you in on his life's story and wants you to like him - odd to think this man is cruising around with a loaded pistol, making up his mind about which bank he'll soon rob.' - Richard Ford, Canada

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

In their faces--plenty of them were handsome, but ruined--I've seen the remnants of who they almost succeeded in being but failed to be, before becoming themselves.