Quotes from Richard Ford

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

no matter the evidence of your life, or who you believe you are, or what you're willing to take credit for or draw your vital strength and pride from—anything at all can follow anything at all.

And one day you woke up and you found yourself in the very situation you said you would never ever be in, and you did not know what was most important to you anymore. (Sweethearts, 1986)

No te niegues a las cosas, y asegúrate de tener siempre algo que no te importe perder. Eso es lo importante.

Some things can't be explained. They just are. And after a while they disappear, usually forever, or become interesting in another way. Literature's consolations are always temporary, while life is quick to begin again. It is better not even to look so hard, to leave off explaining. Nothing makes me more queasy than to spend time with people who don't know that and who can't forget, and for whom such knowledge isn't a cornerstone of life.

I believe I have done these two things. Faced down regret. Avoided ruin. And I am still here to tell about it.

FIRST, I'LL TELL ABOUT THE ROBBERY OUR PARENTS committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. The robbery is the more important part, since it served to set my and my sister's lives on the courses they eventually followed. Nothing would make complete sense without that being told first.

Nature doesn't rhyme her children,' I said, happy to remember the line of Emerson's

Best just to swallow back your tear, get accustomed to the minor sentimentals and shove off to whatever's next, not whatever was. Place means nothing.

Down the wide, cool center hall I head to the shadowy, high, tin-ceilinged kitchen that smells of garlic, fruit and refrigerator freon, where I unload my wine into the big Sub-Zero.

I'm not even certain I care to know. Some people were not made to have best friends, and I might be one. Walter might be another, though for different reasons. Acquaintanceship usually suffices for me, which was more or less the one important lesson learned from my Lebanese girlfriend, Selma Jassim, at Berkshire College, since if anything, she believed mutual confidences of almost any kind were just a lot of baloney.

And I am in the crowd just as the drums are passing - always the last in line - their boom-boom-booming in my ears, and all around. I see the sun above the street, breathe in the day's rich, warm smell. Someone calls out, Clear a path, make room, make room please! The trumpets go again. My heartbeat quickens. I feel the push, the pull, the weave and sway of others.

Then somebody said—Carter Knott—that Eddie was writing a novel (the last outpost for a certain species of doomed optimist).

Things you did,things you never did,things you dreamed. After a long time they run together.

Something draws you... An impatience with your own ignorance.

What is it about falling? He died of a fall. The poor thing never recovered after his fall. He broke his hip in a fall and was never the same. Death came relatively quickly after a fall in the back yard. How fucking far do these people fall? Off of buildings? Over spamming cataracts? Down manholes? Is it farther to the ground than it used to be?

Tony Lamas and fitted polo shirt. And that growing sense

My name's not José, goddamn it." I cast a wintry eye at Lynette's spurious beigey Jesus nailed to the siding. He makes life a perfect misery for as many as he can, then never takes the heat. He should try resurrection in today's complex world. He'd fall right off His cross on His ass. He couldn't sell newspapers.

Life's passed along to us empty. We have to make up the happiness part.

Even the smallest public rigmarole is a pain in the ass, its true importance measurable not in the final effect but by how willing we are to leave our usual selves behind and by how much colossal bullshit and anarchy we're willing to put up with in a worthwhile cause. I always like it better when clowns seem to try to be happy.

Cosas que hiciste. Cosas que nunca hiciste. Cosas que soñaste. Al cabo de un largo tiempo se juntan todas.

My one redeeming strength of character may be that I am good when the chips are down. With success I am worse.

mystery about life—the mystery which promises that even with careful notice, much happens that we do not understand.

There are people like that in the world—people with something wrong with them that can be disguised but won't be denied, and which dominates them.