Quotes from Independence Day

Richard Ford ·  464 pages

Rating: (13.4K votes)


“...the worst thing about regret is that it makes you duck the chance of new regret, just as you get a glimmer that nothing is worth doing unless it has the potential to fuck up your whole life.

― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“Some idiotic things are well worth doing.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“For, how else to seize such an instant? How to shout out into the empty air just the right words, and on cue? Frame a moment to last a lifetime?”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“But to anyone reasonable, my life will seem more or less normal-under-the-microscope, full of contingencies and incongruities none of us escapes and which do little harm in an existence that otherwise goes unnoticed.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“(My greatest human flaw and strength, not surprisingly, is that I can always imagine anything--a marriage, a conversation, a government--as being different from how it is, a trait that might make one a top-notch trial lawyer or novelist or realtor, but that also seems to produce a somewhat less than reliable and morally feasible human being.)”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day



“Any rainy summer morning, of course, has the seeds of gloomy alienation sown in. But a rainy summer morning far from home - when your personal clouds don't move but hang - can easily produce the feeling of the world as seen from the grave. This I know.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“All this is a natural part of the aging process, in which you find yourself with less to do and more opportunities to eat your guts out regretting everything you have done.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“I don’t, after all, know what’s wrong with him, am not even certain anything is, or that wrong isn’t just a metaphor for something else, which may itself already be a metaphor. Though probably what’s amiss, if anything, is not much different from what’s indistinctly amiss with all of us at one time or another – we’re not happy, we don’t know why, and we drive ourselves loony trying to get better”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“Though finally the worst thing about regret is that it makes you duck the chance of suffering new regret just as you get a glimmer that nothing's worth doing unless it has the potential of to fuck up your whole life”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“when you’re young your opponent is the future; but when you’re not young, your opponent’s the past and everything you’ve done in it and the problem of getting away from it.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day



“Such narrowly missed human connection as this can in fact be fatal, no matter who's at fault, and often results in unrecoverable free fall and a too-hasty conclusion that 'the whole goddamn thing's not worth bothering with or it wouldn't be so goddamn confusing all the goddamn time,' after which one party (or both) just wanders off and never thinks to look toward the other again. Such is the iffiness of romance.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“« Voyez-vous, d’après mon expérience, c’est quand on a l’impression de ne pas progresser qu’on avance sans doute le plus. »”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“And I had the feeling he was far out ahead of me then and in many things. Any time spent with your child is partly a damn sad time, the sadness of life a-going, bright, vivid, each time a last. A loss. A glimpse into what could’ve been. It can be corrupting. I”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“Possibly this is one more version of "disappearing into your life", the way career telephone company bigwigs, overdutiful parents and owners of wholesale lumber companies are said to do and never know it. You simply reach a point at which everything looks the same but nothing matters much. There's no evidence you're dead, but you act that way.”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day


“Though finally the worst thing about regret is that it makes you duck the chance of suffering new regret just as you get a glimmer that nothing’s worth doing unless it has the potential to fuck up your whole life. A”
― Richard Ford, quote from Independence Day



About the author

Richard Ford
Born place: in Jackson, Mississippi, The United States
Born date February 16, 1944
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Columbus isn’t exactly the murder capital of the world, but like every city it has a dark side.”
― Linda Castillo, quote from Sworn to Silence


“Kindness is a rotten fruit that poisons anyone who partakes of it. Throw it in the face of your enemies and let it ruin them instead.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from The Guardian


“In the space of so many scant hours, a new world had lifted the hem of her skirts before him. A world of seething pleasures and sweaty rage.”
― Ted Dekker, quote from Forbidden


“s they sat, him on the sofa and her in a chair, she added, “I know you enjoy coffee, I’d offer you some. But, the last time I got you coffee, it didn’t work out so well for me.”
Tony smirked, “God, Claire you’re something else. I can’t imagine anyone else joking about that.”
― Aleatha Romig, quote from Truth


“A bad thing happened to you kids, Dad said. But it could have been worse.
So much worse, Mom said.
But because of you kids, Dad said, it wasn't.
You did so good, Mom said.
Did beautiful, Dad said.”
― George Saunders, quote from Tenth of December


Interesting books

Eyes Wide Open
(37.8K)
Eyes Wide Open
by Raine Miller
The Great Indian Novel
(4.7K)
The Great Indian Nov...
by Shashi Tharoor
Frostfire
(11.9K)
Frostfire
by Amanda Hocking
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology
(3.6K)
Zeus Grants Stupid W...
by Cory O'Brien
Memorizing You
(1.1K)
Memorizing You
by Dan Skinner
Crimes Against Magic
(8.8K)
Crimes Against Magic
by Steve McHugh

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.