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The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing.

Richard Ford

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Richard Ford
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: February 16
Novelist
Writer
Jackson
Mississippi
Failing
Worth
Writer
Asks
Even
Thing
Something
Worthwhile
Never
Fail

More quotes by Richard Ford

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And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.
Richard Ford
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Humans generally get out the gist of what they need to say right at the beginning, then spend forever qualifying, contradicting, burnishing or taking important things back. Yor rareley miss anything by cutting most people off after two sentences.
Richard Ford
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Love isn’t a thing, after all, but an endless series of single acts.
Richard Ford
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Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea.
Richard Ford
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Some people think that writers are innately solitary and that there's a kind of romance to that solitariness. I tend to think that what writers really want to do is get accepted into things. They want to get accepted into society, into culture, into intelligentsia, into the fun. Writing is their mechanism, their instrument, for doing that.
Richard Ford
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I'm kind of a distractible guy.
Richard Ford
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It's interesting to leave a place, interesting even to think about it. Leaving reminds us of what we can part with and what we can't, then offers us something new to look forward to, to dream about.
Richard Ford
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I didn't feel up to writing about 9/11. If I were to write about it, it would take me years.
Richard Ford
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Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that
Richard Ford
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I've been mainly a happy boy in my life. I married the right girl and we did what we wanted to do.
Richard Ford
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If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.
Richard Ford
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Maturity, as I conceived it, was recognizing what was bad or peculiar in life, admitting it has to stay that way, and going ahead with the best of things.
Richard Ford
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Life's passed along to us empty. We have to make up the happiness part.
Richard Ford
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Literature should not be exclusive, it should be inclusive. My general view is that you can't, based on your own experience, project what a book will do for someone else. That's why I don't review books.
Richard Ford
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I want saner gun laws. I think all these automatic weapons should be banned, big clips and handguns should be banned. As far as I'm concerned, shotguns and hunting weapons are all that we should allow in America.
Richard Ford
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Theres a lot to be said for doing what youre not supposed to do, and the rewards of doing what youre supposed to do are more subtle and take longer to become apparent, which maybe makes it less attractive. But your life is the blueprint you make after the building is built.
Richard Ford
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Americans don't have saner gun laws because most Americans, including those citizens who puzzle over better angels, don't want saner gun laws.
Richard Ford
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I don't want to be taken to Bhutan and smell the flowers. I want to be told something I couldn't have been told any other way.
Richard Ford
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I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.
Richard Ford
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The world is a more engaging and less dramatic place than writers ever give it credit for being
Richard Ford