A Quote by Richard Ford

The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing. — © Richard Ford
The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing.
I enjoy the fun of failure. It's fun to fail, I kept repeating. It's part of being ambitious; it's part of being creative. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly
The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.
Marrying the right girl is even more imperative today than it was when I was 23 years old because it's so much harder to get on as an imaginative writer like me now. You need to have somebody who believes in what you're doing and who never is skeptical about what you're doing. My wife thought it was a great thing for me to be a writer because in practical terms it freed her to do what she wanted to do, which was work.
First ask why, and decide whether something is worth doing. Only after that should you set about doing it as well as you can.
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.
That's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and WORTH the doing.
Forget being the best of anything. That's the fruit of the action, and you do the work -they say- for the doing, not the fruit. You can never really know how it's gonna turn out in the world but you know if you enjoy doing it. And ideas start flowing and you start getting, you know, excited about stuff. Then you're having a great time in the doing and that's what it's all about. If you don't enjoy the doing, then do something else.
Am I doing the movie because I'm really excited about it and want to do it, or am I doing it because it seems like it's a big budget or something like that? It would still have to be the right thing, because my lifestyle's really cheap and I'm able to exist doing smaller movies, so if I'm able to do that, I'm happy to do that. But if something bigger came along that seems really cool, then that would be great.
I don't want to become a star. I never wished to become an actor, even when I am here. When you decide to become an actor, you've to choose why you're doing it. Are you doing it to become an actor or because you want to be famous? I am doing it because I love being in front of the camera.
Women rule the world. It's not really worth fighting because they know what they're doing. Ask Napoleon. Ask Adam. Ask Richard Burton or Richie Sambora. Many a man has crumbled.
That's your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to recommend that you learn another doing... It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize that both doings are lies, unreal, and that to hinge yourself to either one is a waste of time, because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the note-doing of the self
I've always been paranoid about the police, because even when I'm not doing anything illegal, I'm thinking about doing something illegal. So, whenever I'm around a cop, I get uncomfortable and nervous, worried that I'll say the wrong thing or look so guilty they'll arrest me anyway. Being completely out of my mind on drugs doesn't help the situation any.
Maybe I don't think I'm touching people, but I am. Sometimes I'm sitting there at three in the morning, proofreading something, and I'm thinking, Is this really worth it? Or am I doing this only because my mother taught me never to give up? Then you realize, no, even if it doesn't come back to you, you are touching people.
It's like, whether or not you're humiliated or embarrassed or you do well is contingent on the choices that you make in your work. So that is a lot of pressure to be like, 'Oh no, am I doing the right thing? Am I doing something cool? Am I doing something bad?'
I've always been interested in definitions, because in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are there but there's no real clear definition of what sin is, in a fundamental sense - how we can use the words to evaluate our lives as we go along: Am I doing something that is ethically good? Am I being worthwhile in my life at this moment?
I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.
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