Ford Madox Ford Quotes

Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature.

Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier , the Parade's End tetralogy and The Fifth Queen trilogy . The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read". Wikipedia  

✵ 17. December 1873 – 26. June 1939   •   Other names فورد مادوکس فورد
Ford Madox Ford photo

Works

The Good Soldier
The Good Soldier
Ford Madox Ford
Parade's End
Parade's End
Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford: 20   quotes 1   like

Famous Ford Madox Ford Quotes

“The world is full of places to which I want to return”

Source: The Good Soldier

“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?”

Part One, Ch. I (p. 7)
Source: The Good Soldier (1915)
Context: No, by God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was a prison — a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they might not outsound the rolling of our carriage wheels as we went along the shaded avenues of the Taunus Wald.
And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It was true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from the mouth of stone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with the same tastes, with the same desires, acting — or, no, not acting — sitting here and there unanimously, isn't that the truth? 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?

“Call no day fortunate till it be ended.”
Nulla dies felix

The Fifth Queen Crowned

Ford Madox Ford Quotes

“Yes, society must go on; it must breed, like rabbits. That is what we are here for. But then, I don't like society — much. I am that absurd figure, an American millionaire, who has bought one of the ancient haunts of English peace. I sit here, in Edward's gun-room, all day and all day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for I visit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no interests.”

Part Four, Ch. VI (p. 254)
The Good Soldier (1915)
Context: Yes, society must go on; it must breed, like rabbits. That is what we are here for. But then, I don't like society — much. I am that absurd figure, an American millionaire, who has bought one of the ancient haunts of English peace. I sit here, in Edward's gun-room, all day and all day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for I visit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no interests. In twenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village, beneath my own oaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse, to get the American mail. My tenants, the village boys and the tradesmen will touch their hats to me. So life peters out. I shall return to dine and Nancy will sit opposite me with the old nurse standing behind her. Enigmatic, silent, utterly well-behaved as far as her knife and fork go, Nancy will stare in front of her with the blue eyes that have over them strained, stretched brows. Once, or perhaps twice, during the meal her knife and fork will be suspended in mid-air as if she were trying to think of something that she had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an Omnipotent Deity or she will utter the one word "shuttle-cocks", perhaps. It is very extraordinary to see the perfect flush of health on her cheeks, to see the lustre of her coiled black hair, the poise of the head upon the neck, the grace of the white hands — and to think that it all means nothing — that it is a picture without a meaning. Yes, it is queer.

“To Leonora's eternal question he answered that all he desired in life was that — that he could pick himself together again and go on with his daily occupations if — the girl, being five thousand miles away, would continue to love him.”

Part Four, Ch. V (pp. 240-241)
The Good Soldier (1915)
Context: She asked him perpetually what he wanted. What did he want? What did he want? And all he ever answered was: "I have told you". He meant that he wanted the girl to go to her father in India as soon as her father should cable that he was ready to receive her. But just once he tripped up. To Leonora's eternal question he answered that all he desired in life was that — that he could pick himself together again and go on with his daily occupations if — the girl, being five thousand miles away, would continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his God for nothing more. Well, he was a sentimentalist.

“You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many.”

Part One, Ch. I (p. 5)
The Good Soldier (1915)
Context: You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.

“For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste.”

The March of Literature (1939)
Context: 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.

“It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me.”

Part Four, Ch. V (pp. 237-238)
Source: The Good Soldier (1915)
Context: It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me.
Is there any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's lives like the lives of us good people — like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords — broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?

“Only two classes of books are of universal appeal: the very best and the very worst.”

Joseph Conrad : A Personal Remembrance (1924)

“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”

Part One, Ch. I (p. 3) first line; Ford had originally intended the work to be titled The Saddest Story.
The Good Soldier (1915)

Similar authors

Fernando Pessoa photo
Fernando Pessoa 288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi…
Aldous Huxley photo
Aldous Huxley 290
English writer
Virginia Woolf photo
Virginia Woolf 382
English writer
Richard Aldington photo
Richard Aldington 5
English writer and poet
David Foster Wallace photo
David Foster Wallace 185
American fiction writer and essayist
Agatha Christie photo
Agatha Christie 320
English mystery and detective writer
Douglas Adams photo
Douglas Adams 317
English writer and humorist
Jerome K. Jerome photo
Jerome K. Jerome 87
English humorist
Mario Benedetti photo
Mario Benedetti 4
Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet
William Faulkner photo
William Faulkner 214
American writer