Richard Ford

Some people want to be bank presidents. Other people want to rob banks.

What's friendship's realest measure?
I'll tell you. The amount of precious time you'll squander on someone else's calamities and fuck-ups.

People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.

What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.

Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that.

Then, what's the matter?' I wonder, in fact, how many times I have said that or something equal to it to a woman passing palely through my life. What're you thinking? What's made you so quiet? You seem suddenly different. What's the matter? Love me is what this means, of course. Or at least, second best: surrender. Or at the very least, take some time regaling me with why you won't, and maybe by the end you will.