Richard Ford

Some idiotic things are well worth doing.

— Richard Ford

“Anyone could be anyone else in most ways. Face the facts.”

— Richard Ford

I didn't read a serious book until I was 19.

— Richard Ford

If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

When people realize they are being listened to, they tell you things.

— Richard Ford

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

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

— Richard Ford

I went to college to study hospitality. I quickly got out of that and realized that what I liked to do was…

— Richard Ford

I wouldn't be a very good writer if someone hadn't taught me how to read.

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

If I could have married my wife and been a sports writer for the past 30 years, I wouldn't be sitting here…

— Richard Ford

The way in which sports focuses more on the peccadilloes, lives and putative personalities of athletes and less on the finer points…

— Richard Ford

I decided early on that I wanted to participate in the greater American experience, rather than the parochial one in Mississippi. But…

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

“What's friendship's realest measure? I'll tell you. The amount of precious time you'll squander on someone else's calamities and fuck-ups.”

— Richard Ford

I'm trying to cause people to be interested in the particulars of their lives because I think that's one thing literature can…

— Richard Ford

Our ex-wifes always harbour secrets about us that make them irresistable. Until, of course, we remember who we are and what we…

— Richard Ford

For a time after my divorce everything began to seem profoundly ironic to me. I found myself thinking of other peoples' worries…

— Richard Ford

“What I know is, you have a better chance in life-of surviving it-if you tolerate loss well;manage not to be a cynic…

— Richard Ford

What I know is, you have chance in life--of surviving it--if you tolerate loss well; manage not to be a cynic through…

— Richard Ford

They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be…

— Richard Ford

“Such narrowly missed human connection as this can in fact be fatal, no matter who's at fault, and often results in unrecoverable…

— Richard Ford

“I lie back on the bed and listen to the sounds of Easter—the optimist’s holiday, the holiday with the suburbs in mind,…

— Richard Ford

“If there's another thing that sportswriting teaches you, it is that there are no transcendent themes in life. In all cases things…

— Richard Ford

If sportswriting teaches you anything, and there is much truth to it as well as plenty of lies, it is that for…

— Richard Ford

Until you can become accountable to yourself and only yourself, you're probably not going to live a fully vital life. So much…

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

I didn't feel up to writing about 9/11. If I were to write about it, it would take me years.

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

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

— Richard Ford

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him sing opera.”

— Richard Ford

“All we really want is to get to the point where the past can explain nothing about us and we can get…

— Richard Ford

Very early you come to the realization that nothing will ever take you away from yourself.

— Richard Ford

“Stop searching. Face the earth where you can. Literally speaking, it’s all you have to go on.”

— Richard Ford

“entering the past is a precarious business, since the past strives but always half-fails to make us who we are.”

— Richard Ford

Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that

— Richard Ford

“First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.”

— Richard Ford

I know you can dream your way through an otherwise fine life, and never wake up, which is what I almost did.

— Richard Ford