Quote#Wisdom
You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For…
Quote byFord Madox Ford · 1873–1939
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Good Soldier (1915), Part One, Ch. I (p. 5).
English (original)
You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.
— Ford Madox Ford
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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.
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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 …