Richard Ford Quotes

It's the way life is, I suppose. Whatever happens, you deal with it.

You've just got to take things the way they are and accept them and strive.

It’s tempting to wish for the perfect boss, the perfect parent, or the perfect outfit. But maybe the best any of us can do is not to quit, play the hand we’ve been dealt, and accessorize what we’ve got.

Ah, well! We live and learn, or, anyway, we live.

Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything.

I think we ought to take the world as it is and not as we would like to have it.

One must know the so-called 'lesson of a downpour.' A man, caught in a sudden rain en route, dashes along the road not to get wet or drenched. Once one takes it for granted that in rain he naturally gets wet, he can be in a tranquil frame of mind even when soaked to the skin. This lesson applies to everything.

I used to think everything had to be perfect, but now I know perfection doesn't exist - life comes with bumps and grazes.

Coming from a big family, I learned a lot. Things don't have to be perfect. You can do okay with 'almost.'

My version, of course, is not this flag-waving, let's all get on the Jesus train and ride out of hell. I'm not that kind of guy. It's an embrace that life is good, worth living and yeah, it's not easy, but there are more pluses than minuses.

I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living.

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

Things are never perfect, so I never get too high about things, or get too down about things anymore.

To put up with what you cannot avoid is a philosophical principle, that may not perhaps lead you to the accomplishment of great deeds, but is assuredly eminently practical.

Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.

Today, I don't have any psychological scars, because I am a realist and an optimist. After all, I can't lose my legs twice.

You just have to get on with life, there's no alternative. You could curl up in a ball on your bed, but that's not going to achieve anything.

Wisdom never kicks at the iron walls it can't bring down.

Do the best that can be done and then . . . be resigned.

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around them. That's all you need to know. Nothing more. Don't demand to know "why such things exist." Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work.

Don't argue about the difficulties. The difficulties will argue for themselves.

I remembered her once saying that life was like your shoes. You couldn't simply expect or imagine that your shoes would fit perfectly. Shoes that pinched your feet were a fact of life.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

He [Ryan white] spoke to me that my life was out of order. My life was a mess. I had no values anymore. And he was so stoic with his infection. He wasn't bitter. He wasn't angry. He just was a kid. He wanted to go to school and play football, drive his car. And he had no bitterness about him.

Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced.