Jeffrey Ford

Quotes

1. I knew we were going somewhere I didn’t have any interest in going, because I was wearing a tie and jacket.

   p. 76

2. 

   An honor it was, too, as he told me, “You know that because you don’t get paid anything for it.”

   p. 37

3. 

   “You two don’t know yet,” he said. “When you get old, you think more about the past than about what you did five minutes ago. Time changes.”

   p. 289

4. 

   Time became a sermon, preaching itself.

   p. 236

5. 

   “There is only one term for this war,” said the old man with the sunglasses. “‘Clusterfuck.’ Cluster as in ‘cluster’ and fuck as in ‘fuck.’ No more need be said.”

   p. 9

6. 

   Dreams are dreams and the future is like a hall of mirrors reflecting the past and offering up wavering illusions until everything shatters and you were cut to ribbons by shards of reality.

   p. 308

7. 

   “My specialty is napping.”

   “A noble pursuit,” he said.

   p. 178

8. 

   You are no more nor less than any man—a hungry heart and a wavering will.

   p. 307

9. 

   The lion is fur, muscle, tendon, claw, and speed, five important ingredients of the unfathomable.

   p. 119

10. 

    The semester began, and I soon discovered that abstract painting was still the order of the day at the university. Most of the professors had come of age in their own work during the late fifties and sixties and were still channeling the depleted spirit of Jackson Pollock; second- and third-rate abstract expressionists tutoring young painters in the importance of ignoring the figure. The canvases were vast, the paint apply liberally, and the bigger the mess the more praise the piece garnered.

    p. 187

11. 

    The seventh expression was a blend of the look of a hungry child, the gaze of an angry ball, and the stern countenance of God. The report records that the creators were questioned as to how they came up with the countenance of God, and their famous response was, “We used a mirror.”

    p. 72

12. 

    But I was immediately brought to attention again when Sister said, “Dead pets and dead babies who haven’t been baptized, that’s who goes to Limbo.”

    I wondered if dead babies had no souls. And then my imagination kicked in and I envisioned Limbo—a quiet, idyllic place populated by nothing but pets and babies. It seemed like a good place to go. Obviously much better than Hell, what with its eternal fires, serpents, and bat-winged, pitch-fork-wielding demons. Eternal suffering—sort of like church, but only longer and a lot hotter. Actually, Limbo even seemed better than Heaven, the rewards of which—clouds, harp music, and angels—after a long life of always doing the right thing seemed pretty underwhelming. What would you do for the rest of eternity after you learned to play the harp real good?

    p. 216