At heart, of course, a story itself is consolation's instrument. Richard Ford More Quotes by Richard Ford More Quotes From Richard Ford You're only good if you can do bad and decide not to. Richard Ford ifs can-do And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces. Richard Ford fear loss writing Something will be there when the flood recedes. We know that. It will be those people now standing in the water, and on those rooftops - many black, many poor. Homeless. Overlooked. And it will be New Orleans - though its memory may be shortened, its self-gaze and eccentricity scoured out so that what's left is a city more like other cities, less insular, less self-regarding, but possibly more self-knowing after today. A city on firmer ground. Richard Ford new-orleans self memories The world is a more engaging and less dramatic place than writers ever give it credit for being Richard Ford credit giving world Any rainy summer morning, of course, has the seeds of gloomy alienation sown in. But a rainy summer morning far from home - when your personal clouds don't move but hang - can easily produce the feeling of the world as seen from the grave. This I know. Richard Ford summer morning moving It's interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Richard Ford farewell dream retirement Fear and hope are alike underneath. Richard Ford hope fear I realized I loved you, and I didn't want to be married to somebody I didn't love. I wanted to be married to you. It isn't all that complicated. Richard Ford married complicated want She was an artist. She held opposites in her mind. Richard Ford artist mind opposites Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes on you. A certain set of buildings, a glimpsed, smudged window-view across a schoolyard, a musty aroma sniffed behind a garage when you were a child, all of which come crowding in upon your latter-day senses -- those are pungent things and vivid, even consoling. But to me they are also inert and nostalgic and unlikely to connect you to the real, to that essence art can sometimes achieve, which is permanence. Richard Ford real children art Life's passed along to us empty. We have to make up the happiness part. Richard Ford empty For, how else to seize such an instant? How to shout out into the empty air just the right words, and on cue? Frame a moment to last a lifetime? Richard Ford lasts moments air It is no loss to mankind when one writer decides to call it a day. When a tree falls in the forest, who cares but the monkeys? Richard Ford loss tree fall Someone ... tell us what's important, because we no longer know. Richard Ford whats-important important knows For a time after my divorce everything began to seem profoundly ironic to me. I found myself thinking of other peoples' worries as sources of amusement and private derision which I thought about at night to make myself feel better. Richard Ford divorce feel-better thinking What I know is, you have chance in life--of surviving it--if you tolerate loss well; manage not to be a cynic through it all; to subordinate, as Ruskin implied, to keep proportion, to connect the unequal things into a whole that preserves the good, even if admittedly good is often not simple to find. Richard Ford chance simple loss Most things don't stay the way they are very long. Richard Ford take-nothing-for-granted long way They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis? Richard Ford mother father children 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 rights america people Only sometimes you can't feel anything about a subject without hypothesizing its extinction. Richard Ford extinction feels sometimes
