Best Ford Madox Ford Quotes & Sayings

She had always known under her mind and now she confessed it: her agony had been, half of it, because one day he would say farewell to her, like that, with the inflexion of a verb. As, just occasionally, using the word 'we' - and perhaps without intention - he had let her know that he loved her. — Ford Madox Ford

My dear, it couldn't have lasted for ever ... But you're a good man. And very clever ... . You will get through ... . — Ford Madox Ford

You will then. Listen here ... I've always got this to look forward to: I'll settle down by that man's side. I'll be as virtuous as any woman. I've made up my mind to it and I'll be it. And I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life. Except for one thing. I can torment that man. And I'll do it. Do you understand how I'll do it? There are many ways. But if the worst comes to the worst I can always drive him silly ... by corrupting the child!' She was panting a little, and round her brown eyes the whites showed. 'I'll get even with him. I can. I know how, you see. And with you, through him, for tormenting me. I've come all the way from Brittany without stopping. I haven't slept ... But I can ... — Ford Madox Ford

It is of course lawful to learn of the Enemy; but is it sensible? — Ford Madox Ford

Inspector had been in the library, and might possibly have — Ford Madox Ford

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. — Ford Madox Ford

No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano. — Ford Madox Ford

Being correspondent of a Left paper with a name like Eisenstein deprived one of one's chance of usefulness. Besides — Ford Madox Ford

But charity begins surely with the char! — Ford Madox Ford

he invited Sylvia to dine with him somewhere where they were going to have something fabulous and very nasty at about two guineas the ounce on the menu. Something like that! And during dinner Sir John had entertained her by singing the praises of her husband. He said that Tietjens was much too great a gentleman to be wasted on the old-furniture trade: that was why he hadn't persisted. But he sent by Sylvia a message to the effect that if ever Tietjens did come to be in want of money . . . Occasionally Sylvia was worried — Ford Madox Ford

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

But to betray her with battalion ... That is against decency, against Nature ... And for him, Christopher tietjens, to come down to the level of the men you met here! — Ford Madox Ford

So you cannot teach me a great deal about the shady in life. I was in the family of a Middlesex County Councillor. In — Ford Madox Ford

I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him. — Ford Madox Ford

Being a miner he sat on his heels more comfortably than on a chair — Ford Madox Ford

With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like, an acquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture - all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love. — Ford Madox Ford

A great night, with room enough for Heaven to be hidden there from our not too perspicacious eyes. ... It was said that an earthquake shock imperceptible to our senses set those cattle and sheep and horses and pigs crashing through all the hedges of the county. And it was queer: before they had so started lowing and moving Mark was now ready to swear that he had heard a rushing sound. He probably had not! One could so easily self-deceive oneself! The cattle had been panicked because they had been sensible of the presence of the Almighty walking upon the firmament. ... — Ford Madox Ford

It was probably indecent to think of a corpse as impotent. But he was, very likely. That would be why his wife had taken up with the prize-fighter Red Evans Williams of Castell Goch. — Ford Madox Ford

This, Tietjens thought, is England! A man and a maid walk through Kentish grass fields: the grass ripe for the scythe. The man honourable, clean, upright; the maid virtuous, clean, vigorous; he of good birth; she of birth quite as good; each filled with a too good breakfast that each could yet capably digest. Each come just from an admirably appointed establishment: a table surrounded by the best people, their promenade sanctioned, as it were, by Church - two clergy - the State, two Government officials; by mothers, friends, old maids. — Ford Madox Ford

Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst. — Ford Madox Ford

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

But the fellow talked like a cheap novelist. - Or like a very good novelist for the matter of that, if it's the business of a novelist to make you see things clearly. — Ford Madox Ford

You see in such a world as this, an idealist -or perhaps it's only a sentimentalist-must be stoned to death. He makes the others so uncomfortable. He haunts them at their golf. — Ford Madox Ford

You may 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 desire to set down what they have witnesses for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. — Ford Madox Ford

If he had uttered the word "come" she would have followed him to the bitter ends of the earth; if he had said, "There is no hope," she would have known the finality of despair. — Ford Madox Ford

The rocks would be there a million years after the light went for the last time out. — Ford Madox Ford

That in effect was love. It struck him as astonishing. The word was so little in his vocabulary ... — Ford Madox Ford

You can't kill a minuet de la coeur. You may shut up the music book ... but surely the minuet
the minuet itself is dancing itself away into the furthest stars, even as our minuet of the Hessian bathing places must be stepping itself still. — Ford Madox Ford

That monstrosity you honour with your name - which is also mine, thank you! — Ford Madox Ford

I know!' Father Consett said. 'You're a beautiful woman. Some men would say it was a lucky fellow that lived with you. I don't ignore the fact in my cogitation. He'd imagine all sorts of delights to lurk in the shadow of your beautiful hair. And they wouldn't.' Sylvia brought her gaze down from the ceiling and fixed her brown eyes for a moment on the priest, speculatively. — Ford Madox Ford

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

Ford's last Fifth Queen novel is amazing. The whole cycle is a noble conception. — Ford Madox Ford

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

That's all right! That's all right!' But for a minute or two it wasn't really. All feminine claws, he said to himself, are sheathed in velvet; but they can hurt a good deal if they touch you on the sore places of the defects of your qualities - even merely with the velvet. He added: 'Your mother works you very hard. — Ford Madox Ford

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

What then is to be the lot of Rossetti's fame and influence? 'An amateur who failed in two arts', it is true; yet it hardly harms Rossetti or touches his standing. On the contrary, it defines both very brilliantly. The small word 'failed' is a small word and little more to artists who are forever going on until they give up over a game that must be lost. Every artist, when confronted by the immensities of art, which is life, must confess to failure. A failure is a thing very relative. — Ford Madox Ford