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Richard Ford Quotes

Powerful Richard Ford for Daily Growth

Married life requires shared mystery even when all the facts are known.

- Richard Ford

Life, Facts, Shared, Married Life

I work really hard at these books, and when colleagues write nasty reviews of them, I take it very personally.

- Richard Ford

Work, Very, Them, Nasty

I don't have a very logical and orderly mind.

- Richard Ford

Mind, Logical, Very, Orderly

I had a Tourette's period. And obsessive compulsive disorder. Things would get in my brain that I couldn't get out of my brain.

- Richard Ford

Brain, Had, Period, Compulsive

There's a lot to be said for doing what you're not supposed to do, and the rewards of doing what you're supposed to do are more subtle and take longer to become apparent, which maybe makes it less attractive. But your life is the blueprint you make after the building is built.

- Richard Ford

Doing, Maybe, Your, Blueprint

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

- Richard Ford

Here, Maybe, Across, Map

It's interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Leaving reminds us of what we can part with and what we can't, then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about.

- Richard Ford

Think, New, Offers, Reminds

I decided early on that I wanted to participate in the greater American experience, rather than the parochial one in Mississippi. But I have an urge as a writer to meld the Southern experience into the larger American one.

- Richard Ford

Southern, Larger, Parochial

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.

- Richard Ford

Worry, Think, Pathological, Novels

That said, being dyslexic, I wasn't a great reader when I was kid.

- Richard Ford

Kid, Being, Reader, Dyslexic

I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.

- Richard Ford

Extra, Literature, Felt, Started Reading

The art of living your life has a lot to do with getting over loss. The less the past haunts you, the better.

- Richard Ford

Art, Living, Over, Haunts

Well, I believe in the idea of 'normal' in the way that I believe in the idea of logic. Or the idea of character. All of these ethical constructs are just that: constructs.

- Richard Ford

Believe, Normal, Idea, Constructs

Fear and hope are alike underneath.

- Richard Ford

Fear, Hope, Alike, Underneath

For a writer, children make life needlessly hard. I've muddled through a lot of things, but I have not muddled through my writing life. I work absolutely flat out, giving it my all.

- Richard Ford

Work, Giving, Through, Flat Out

Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married.

- Richard Ford

Only, The Only Thing, Ever, Persistence

Your father has to die, better he dies in your arms.

- Richard Ford

Father, Die, Better, Dies

If I could have married my wife and been a sports writer for the past 30 years, I wouldn't be sitting here - but I don't think I'd be sitting someplace where I was sorry to be sitting.

- Richard Ford

Think, Here, Been, If I Could

I have a theory... that someplace at the heart of most compelling stories is something that doesn't make sense.

- Richard Ford

Most, Stories, Compelling, Someplace

My father died in my arms. That's tumult. That's everything exploding.

- Richard Ford

Father, Arms, Exploding, Tumult

I haven't scoured Dixie out of my voice. But I don't think that the books that I have written... have really in any way been Southern in character.

- Richard Ford

Voice, Think, Southern, Dixie

My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I've never done. Also, I'm a person whom people talk to.

- Richard Ford

Curiosity, Empathy, Also, Whom

I'm an equal opportunity reader - although I don't much read plays. And since I was raised a Presbyterian, pretty much all pleasures are guilty.

- Richard Ford

Pretty, Read, Plays, I Was Raised

I don't hate children. My wife and I just didn't think we would be good parents, and also by the time we got married in 1968, we were pretty nose-down toward what we wanted to do, and having a child was going to be an excuse to fail.

- Richard Ford

Good, Got, By The Time, Excuse

The ways in which things are superficially similar but also distinct is interesting to me.

- Richard Ford

Similar, Ways, Which, Distinct

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

- Richard Ford

Writing, Reading, Most, Leads

Happiness for me is getting to write about the most important things I know.

- Richard Ford

Important, Most, Getting, Important Things

Literature has as one of its principal allures that it tells you something about life that life itself can't tell you. I just thought literature is a thing that human beings do.

- Richard Ford

Thought, Tell, About, Principal

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

- Richard Ford

Sense, Other, Whole, Beats

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.

- Richard Ford

Writing, Never, Still, Naturally

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