Quote#Books & Reading
No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if,…
Quote byFord Madox Ford · 1873–1939
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Dedicatory letter to Stella Ford (1927-01-09) in The Good Soldier, second edition..
English (original)
No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano.
— Ford Madox Ford
More from Ford Madox Ford
No more Hope, no more Glory, no more parades for you and me any more. Nor for the country... nor for the world, I dare say... None... Gone.
What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.
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?
Only two classes of books are of universal appeal: the very best and the very worst.
I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him.
This is the saddest story I have ever heard.