“I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“The world is full of places to which I want to return”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“There is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from 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?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man, is the craving for identity with the woman that he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to touch with the same sense of touch, to hear with the same ears, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever may be said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of the fireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite me. And I shall go on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in the distance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“The instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and madness.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“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, quote from The Good Soldier
“Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“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. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there any Nirvana pervaded by the vain thrilling of instruments that have fallen into the dust of wormwood but that yet had frail, tremulous, and everlasting souls?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“Well she was bright; and she danced...And my function in life was to keep that bright thing in existence. And it was almost as difficult as trying to catch with your hand that dancing reflection. And the task lasted for years.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“She said that she did not wish for any monuments to the Hurlbird family. At the time I thought that that was because of a New England dislike for necrological ostentation.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“Is the whole thing a folly and a mockery? Am I no better than a eunuch or is the proper man—the man with the right to existence—a raging stallion forever neighing after his neighbor’s womankind? I don't know. And there is nothing to guide us. And if everything is so nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, what is there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other personal contacts, associations, and activities?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“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.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“In all matrimonial associations there is, I believe, one constant factor - a desire to deceive the person with whom one lives as to some weak spot in one's character or in one's career. For it is intolerable to live constantly with one human being who perceives one's small meannesses. It is really death to do so - that is why so many marriages turn out unhappily.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“It is a queer world and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“You are to understand that Lenora loved Edward with a passion that was yet like an agony of hatred. And she had lived with him for years and years without addressing to him one word of tenderness. I don't know how she could do it.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“I am not going to be so American as to say that all true love demands some sacrifice. It doesn't. But I think that love will be truer and more permanent in which self-sacrifice has been exacted.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“I suppose that my inner soul - my dual personality - had realized long before that Florence was a personality of paper - that she represented a real human being with a heart, with feelings, with sympathies and with emotions only as a bank-note represents a certain quantity of gold.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“Is there then 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 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?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“Edward ought, I suppose, to have gone to the Transvaal. It would have done him a great deal of good to get killed.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“We talked of it, of course, but I guess Florence got all she wanted out of one look at a place. She had the seeing eye. I haven't, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which I want to return.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“In one's own home it is as if little, innate sympathies draw one to particular chairs that seem to enfold one in an embrace, or take one along particular streets that seem friendly when others may be hostile. And, believe me, that feeling is a very important part of life.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“But upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does one put in one's time? How is it possible to have achieved nine years and to have nothing whatever to show for it?”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
“The signal for the train's departure was a very bright red; that is about as passionate a statement as I can get into that scene.”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
Ford Madox Ford
Born place: in Merton, Surrey, England
Born date December 17, 1873
See more on GoodReads
“Maybe when their minds go, they’re not themselves anymore. Maybe the Newt we know is gone and he’s not aware of what’s happening to him. So really, he’s not suffering.” Minho almost looked offended by the notion. “Nice try, slinthead, but I don’t believe it. I think he’ll always be there just enough to be screaming on the inside, deranged and suffering every shuck second of it. Tormented like a dude buried alive.”
― James Dashner, quote from The Maze Runner Series
“Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them in the way of our interests." Prince”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“We get together with people because they're the same or because they're different, and in the end we split with them for exactly the same reasons.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from Juliet, Naked
“I never thought I would be left behind."
He chuckled. "Eloise Bridgerton, I don't think anyone wouldever make the mistake of leaving you
behind.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from To Sir Phillip, With Love
“Are you coming now?" Griffin snapped.
Karl glanced over at him and smiled. "What's the magic word?"
Griffin stalked off, muttering a word under his breath.
"That's not it," Karl called after him.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Personal Demon
The Laughing Corpse
Light
Lover Reborn
My Blood Approves
The Baron in the Tre...
Lord Foul's BaneBookQuoters 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.
