"Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."
— Ford Madox Ford

"[W]e are almost always in one place with our minds somewhere quite other."
— Ford Madox Ford (Critical Essays of Ford Madox Ford)

"You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can't otherwise talk. You can't finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn't be in the mood when she is in the mood - for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls. You have to wait together - for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained...and exhausted. So that...That in effect was love."
— Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End)