Top 33 Quotes by Richard Ford

I haven't scoured Dixie out of my voice. But I don't think that the books that I have written... have really in any way been Southern in character.

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.

Well, I believe in the idea of 'normal' in the way that I believe in the idea of logic. Or the idea of character. All of these ethical constructs are just that: constructs.

Your father has to die, better he dies in your arms.

My father died in my arms. That's tumult. That's everything exploding.

If I could have married my wife and been a sports writer for the past 30 years, I wouldn't be sitting here - but I don't think I'd be sitting someplace where I was sorry to be sitting.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

I had a Tourette's period. And obsessive compulsive disorder. Things would get in my brain that I couldn't get out of my brain.

My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I've never done. Also, I'm a person whom people talk to.