Richard Ford Quotes

I was never much of a reader. I'm a slow reader, which is unusual, because I'm so into language and I love words so much. But it's hard for me to read.

I move my lips when I read -- I'm painfully slow -- so I like really good English.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

You've got to let accidents and strange things happen - let it work, so it's got an organic sort of quality ... By trying to remove yourself you can see some fantastic things sometimes.

Words have to be crafted, not sprayed. They need to be fitted together with infinite care.

I learned to love the feel of good words.

I try not to bring in anything I don't love looking at. It's about restaint ... There is something about an unfinished quality that leaves within you that sense of possibility.

It's very easy to make something that is new. So we are trying to make things that are better.

Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.

Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

The ability to speak exactly is intimately related to the ability to know exactly.

Aaron Sorkin very sticky about using precise language. It's in his contract: you have to use what he writes!

The Czech movies, the quality movies, are trying to show the life in the country as it is, in an entertaining way, while in America, the majority of movies are wonderful fairy tales.

Books are defensive, not offensive (unless you're the puzzled adult trying to make the kid with the book interact).

There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

I snatched the paper away from Dopey. "Hey," he yelled. "I was reading that!" "Let somebody who can pronounce all the big words have a try," I said.

Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.

I think I tend to destroy the better paintings, or those that have been better to a certain extent. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities, and they lose everything. I think I would say that I destroy all the better paintings.

Quality effective leaders have the confidence to trust others to try, succeed, and sometimes to fail.

I love learning. I tend to stop doing things once I get good at them, and to try something else I'm not as good at, leaving a bunch of fans going, "But he was really good at that. Why isn't he still doing it?"

No matter who weaves in and out of your life, regardless of the quality of those deep friendships and familyships, I'm the only common denominator at this point who's been with me the whole time. And there's this sense of trying to make sense of that ultimate solitude. It's not a negative or even a positive. It's just a fact.

I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do. And then also I kind of had this kind of ideal of the kind of music I want to make and what I'm aiming for kind of creatively and just the quality of the music that I'm trying to make. And I have that in my head.

When you are trying to do something when you are getting started and you are trying to make records for the first time, you want it to be the best.

Youth moves out, leaving no forwarding address. No matter how you try, you can't reach that person again or that place.