Ford Madox Ford Quotes

Quotes about:

• Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Angel, Eden, Idiot

  50 Copy quote

• If for nine years I have possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discover its rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn't it true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple?

  Ford Madox Ford

  Years, Apples, Six Months

  Ford Madox Ford (2015). “The Good Soldier”, p.6, Booklassic

  28 Copy quote

• The object of the novelist is to keep the reader entirely oblivious of the fact that the author exists - even of the fact he is reading a book.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Book, Reading, Novelists

  Ford Madox Ford (1964). “Critical Writings of Ford Madox Ford”, p.76, U of Nebraska Press

  18 Copy quote

• Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Book, Class, Two

  Joseph Conrad pt. 3, sec. 1 (1924)

  16 Copy quote

• If you're going to have a character appear in a story long enough to sell a newspaper, he'd better be real enough that you can smell his breath.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Real, Character, Smell

  17 Copy quote

• The world is full of places to which I want to return

  Ford Madox Ford

  World, Want, Return

  Ford Madox Ford (2003). “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion”, p.43, Broadview Press

  4 Copy quote

• It is not merely that people must die and people must suffer, if not here, then there. But what is dreadful is that the world goes on and people go on being stupidly cruel - in the old ways and all the time.

  Ford Madox Ford

  People, Suffering, Goes On

  Ford Madox Ford (1923). “The Marsden Case: A Romance”

  11 Copy quote

• The instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't

  Ford Madox Ford

  Honesty, Years, Mixing

  Ford Madox Ford (2015). “The Good Soldier”, p.30, Booklassic

  17 Copy quote

• For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Book, Voice, Judging

  Ford Madox Ford (1938). “The March of Literature: From Confucius' Day to Our Own”, p.11, Dalkey Archive Press

  22 Copy quote

• There is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Cutting, Men, Desire

  Ford Madox Ford (2003). “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion”, p.125, Broadview Press

  10 Copy quote

• It was an odd friendship, but the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Guarantees, Texture, Odd

  Ford Madox Ford (2012). “Parade's End”, p.5, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.

  Ford Madox Ford

  People, Want, Wrong Things

  Ford Madox Ford (2015). “The Good Soldier”, p.190, Booklassic

  9 Copy quote

• Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Book, Ninety Nine, Quality

  10 Copy quote

• What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Artist, Wish, Concerned

  "Literary Portraits. VIII - Mr. Joseph Conrad". The Tribune, September 14, 1907.

  11 Copy quote

• I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Heart, Men, World

  Ford Madox Ford (2015). “The Good Soldier”, p.6, Booklassic

  3 Copy quote

• We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Fear, Needs, Sundials

  Ford Madox Ford (2003). “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion”, p.125, Broadview Press

  6 Copy quote

• [W]e are almost always in one place with our minds somewhere quite other.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Mind

  Ford Madox Ford (2003). “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion”, p.267, Broadview Press

  4 Copy quote

• Pride and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Pride, Things In Life, Pieces

  Ford Madox Ford (2003). “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion”, p.178, Broadview Press

  8 Copy quote

• The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story - and then your story!

  Ford Madox Ford

  Writing, Stories, Crafts

  Ford Madox Ford (2012). “It Was the Nightingale”, p.128, Carcanet

  8 Copy quote

• But responsibility hardens the heart. It must.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Heart, Responsibility

  Ford Madox Ford (2011). “Parade's End Volume III: A Man Could Stand Up-”, p.203, Carcanet

  4 Copy quote

• Damn it all, it's the first duty of a soldier - it's the first duty of all Englishmen - to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Lying, Soldier, Able

  Ford Madox Ford (2012). “Parade's End”, p.77, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious.

  Ford Madox Ford

  New York, Crucible, Easy

  Ford Madox Ford (1927). “New York Essays”

  7 Copy quote

• The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things.

  Ford Madox Ford

  War, Men, Looks

  Ford Madox Ford, Graham Greene (1963). “The Bodley Head: Parade's end. Pt.2. No more parades. Pt.3. A man could stand up”

  3 Copy quote

• Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and madness.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Suicide, Mind, Passionate

  Ford Madox Ford (2016). “The Good Soldier: Ford's works”, p.190, VM eBooks

  6 Copy quote

• We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Beautiful, Encouragement, Loneliness

  Ford Madox Ford (2003). “The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion”, p.125, Broadview Press

  19 Copy quote

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