The Lay of the Land Quotes

“Our ex-wifes always harbour secrets about us that make them irresistable. Until, of course, we remember who we are and what we did and why we are not married anymore.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Humans generally get out the gist of what they need to say right at the beginning, then spend forever qualifying, contradicting, burnishing or taking important things back. Yor rareley miss anything by cutting most people off after two sentences.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“At the exact moment any decision seems to be being made, it's usually long after the real decision was actually made--like light we see emitted from stars.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“The things you'll never do don't get decided at the end of life, but somewhere in the long gray middle, where you can't see the dim light at either end.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“... that life can't be escaped and must be faced entirely.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“The kind of happy I was that day at the Vet when "Hawk" Dawson actually doffed his red "C" cap to me, and everyone cheered and practically convulsed into tears - you can't patent that. It was one shining moment of glory that was instantly gone. Whereas life, real life, is different and can't even be appraised as simply "happy", but only in terms of "Yes, I'll take it all, thanks" or "No, I believe I won't." Happy, as my poor father used to say, is a lot of hooey. Happy is a circus clown, a sitcom, a greeting card. Life, though, life's about something sterner. But also something better. A lot better. Believe me.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“In the three boats story, a man is floating alone in an ocean without a life jacket when a boat passes by. "Get in. I'll save you," the boatman says. "Oh, no, it's fine," the floating man answers, "I'm putting my faith in the Lord." In time, two more boats come along, and to each rescuer the man - usually me, in Wade's telling - says, "No, no, I'm putting my faith in the Lord." Eventually, and it isn't very long in coming, the man drowns. Yet when he stands up to meet his Maker at the fated spot where some rejoice but many more cower, his Maker looks sternly down and says, "You're a fool. You're assigned to hell forever. Go there now." To which the drowned man says, "But your honor, I put my faith in you. You promised to save me." "Save you!?" fearsome God shouts from misty marmoreal heights. "Save you? Save you?" God thunders. "I sent you three boats!”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“It's shocking to note how close we play to unwelcome realizations, and yet how our ongoing ignorance makes so much of life possible.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“A lot of things seem one way but are another. And how a thing seems is often just the game we play to save ourselves from great, panicking pain.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“It's odd how our fears, the ones we didn't know we had, alter our sight line and make us see things that never were.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Life is full of surprises, a wise man said, and would not be worth having if it were not.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“I watch CNN every night, but never afterward think much about anything I see--even the election, as stupid as it is. I've come to loathe most sports, which I used to love--a loss I attribute to having seen the same thing over and over again too many times. Only death-row stories and sumo wrestling (narrated in Japanese) will keep me at the TV longer than ten minutes. My bedside table, as I've said, has novels and biographies I've read thirty pages into but can't tell you much about.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Unbridled commerce isn’t generally pretty, but it’s always forward-thinking.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“To me, commerce with no likelihood of significant growth or sky-rocketing appreciation seems like a precious bounty, and the opposite of my years in Haddam, when gasping increase was the sacred article of faith no one dared mention for fear of the truth breeding doubt like an odorless gas that suffocates everybody.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“This can be both consoling (You’re here, you’re not dead), and unconsoling (You’re here, you’re not dead. Why not?). The past just may not be the best place to cast your glance when words fail.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“my”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Real estate might seem to be all about moving and picking up stakes and disruption and three-moves-equals-a-death, but it’s really about arriving and destinations, and all the prospects that await you or might await you in some place you never thought about. I had a drunk old prof at Michigan who taught us that all of America’s literature, Cotton Mather to Steinbeck—this was the same class where I read The Great Gatsby—was forged by one positivist principle: to leave, and then to arrive in a better state.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“And then, in by-the-book bartender protocol, she turns and walks away, resuming something with the lovebirds who’ve been”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“I’ve had that happen to me plenty of times,” I say. Who hasn’t? This is the kind of pseudo-problem that would easily succumb to a Sponsor call. And as always, my solution would be: Forget the hell about it. Think about something better—a new apartment with a wheelchair ramp and maybe a Jenn-Air and lots of phone jacks. Your mind’s not the fucking Yellow Pages. You’ve got no business asking it to perform tasks it’s not interested in just so you can show off. To me, it’s a worse signal that anybody would ever worry about these”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Death came to Mr. X or Ms. Y due to acute heebie-jeebies.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“because of an indistinct yearning, for which an actual house was never the right solution to begin with and may only be a quick (and expensive) fix that briefly anchors and stabilizes them, never touches their deeper need, but puts them in the poorhouse anyway.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“If that’s your story, I’m ready to sell you what you want—if I have it. All the rest—the considered, heartfelt exchange of views, the finding of common ground, the beginning of true (if ephemeral) comradeship based on time spent inside a stuffy automobile—all that I’d do with the Terminix guy. A person has only to know his mind about things, which isn’t as usual as it seems. I view my role as residential agent as having a lay therapist’s fiduciary responsibility (not so different from being a Sponsor). And that responsibility is to leave the client better than I found him—or her. Many citizens set out to buy a house”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“unsystematically oppositional”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“(Business itself, of course, is the very best at offering solid, life-structuring agendas, and business days are always better than wan weekends, and are hands-down better than gaping, ghostly holidays that Americans all claim to love—but I don’t, since these days can turn long, dread-prone and worse.) This morning, however, has already turned at least semi-eventful. Up and dressed by 8:30, I spent a useful half hour in my home office going over listing sheets for the Surf Road property, followed by a browse through the Asbury Press, surveying the “By Owner” offerings, estate auctions, “New Arrivals”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“In other words, we put in practice what the great novelist said about marriage (though he never quite had the genome for it himself). “If I should ever marry,” he wrote, “I should pretend to think just a little better of life than I do.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Wally? Alive? Really? Here, try a sip of this, see if I put in too much Donald Duck. Happy to add more Gilbey’s.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“Mike still has said nothing, acknowledging that I don’t want to talk either. A Buddhist can nose out disharmony like a beagle scenting a bunny. I assume he’s micromanaging his private force fields, better to interface with mine on the ride home.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“And I might’ve made them a quick two mil or ended a bad run of vein-”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“It’s like reading cancer statistics once you’ve been diagnosed—they become a source of misplaced encouragement, like reading last night’s box scores. Misery may not love company. But discouragement definitely does. “Would-you-like-to-come-over-on-Thursday-and-have-Thanksgiving-with-me?”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land

“looking sweat-shiny and paper-thin. The fly of her shorts has inched down from the top button due to ungoverned belly force. I’m sorry to say there’s nothing very appealing about her except that she’s herself and I’m unexpectedly glad to see her. (Clenching has now made my third molar, left side, lower, begin to ache in a way that makes my jaw tighten. I should put in my night guard, which is in my pocket.)”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land