Richard Ford
Richard Ford
Richard Fordis an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank with You, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 February 1944
CityJackson, MS
CountryUnited States of America
absolutely children flat life muddled work
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.
case consumer gears growth reasonable shift spending
The consumer has been out there spending pretty aggressively for some time. I think a reasonable case can be made that we will see growth through the end of the year. There may be some moderation, but the consumer doesn't shift gears on a dime.
air lasts moments
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?
summer morning moving
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.
giving world credit
The world is a more engaging and less dramatic place than writers ever give it credit for being
rewards life-is building
Theres a lot to be said for doing what youre not supposed to do, and the rewards of doing what youre 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.
heart loss thinking
When you are sixteen you do not know what your parents know, or much of what they understand, and less of what's in their hearts. This can save you from becoming an adult too early, save your life from becoming only theirs lived over again--which is a loss. But to shield yourself--as I didn't do--seems to be an even greater error, since what's lost is the truth of your parents' life and what you should think about it, and beyond that, how you should estimate the world you are about to live in.
important whats-important knows
Someone ... tell us what's important, because we no longer know.
love-is endless series
Love isn’t a thing, after all, but an endless series of single acts.
fear writing loss
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.
art children real
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.
happiness writing important
Happiness for me is getting to write about the most important things I know.
rights america people
America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.
mind logical orderly
I don't have a very logical and orderly mind.