John Ford Quotes

#1. I didn't show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.

John Ford

#2. Titles of honor add not to his worth, who is himself an honor of his titles.

John Ford

#3. Contentment gives a crown, where fortune hath denied it.

John Ford

#4. Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

John Ford

#5. Sister, look ye, How, by a new creation of my tailor's I've shook off old mortality.

John Ford

#6. Whilst we strive To live most free, we're caught in our own toils.

John Ford

#7. He hath shook hands with time.

John Ford

#8. Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear; the sweetest freedom is an honest heart.

John Ford

#9. Revenge proves its own executioner.

John Ford

#10. Who better than an Irishman can understand the Indians, while still being stirred by tales of the US cavalry?

John Ford

#11. Truth is child of Time.

John Ford

#12. Why, I hold fate Clasped in my fist, and could command the course Of time's eternal motion, hadst thou been One thought more steady than an ebbing sea.

John Ford

#13. Alas, poor gentleman,
He look'd not like the ruins of his youth
But like the ruins of those ruins.

John Ford

#14. How did I get to Hollywood? By train.

John Ford

#15. Melancholy Is not, as you conceive, indisposition Of body, but the mind's disease.

John Ford

#16. Affections injured by tyranny, or rigor of compulsion, like tempest-threatened trees, unfirmly rooted, never spring to timely growth

John Ford

#17. A bachelor May thrive by observation on a little, A single life's no burthen: but to draw In yokes is chargeable, and will require A double maintenance.

John Ford

#18. The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth, Life's paradise, great princess, the soul's quiet, Sinews of concord, earthly immortality, Eternity of pleasures.

John Ford

#19. I love making pictures but I don't like talking about them.

John Ford

#20. Love is dead; let lovers' eyes,
Locked in endless dreams,
The extremes of all extremes,
Ope no more, for now Love dies.

John Ford

#21. When in doubt, make a western.

John Ford

#22. Most of the good things in pictures happen by accident

John Ford

#23. I am ... a mushroom; On whom the dew of heaven drops now and then.

John Ford

#24. Not only does God play dice with the universe, He's using loaded dice.

John Ford

#25. It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor.

John Ford

#26. You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.

John Ford

#27. Revenge proves itself to be its own executioner.

John Ford

#28. I like, as a director and a spectator, simple, direct, frank films. Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity ... and, most of all, intellectualism.

John Ford

#29. Electronics is clearly the winner of the day.

John Ford

#30. To be quite blunt, I make pictures for money, to pay the rent.There are some great artists in the business. I am not one of them.

John Ford

#31. Tell us, pray, what devil This melancholy is, which can transform Men into monsters.

John Ford

#32. Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.

John Ford

#33. Honour, How much we fight with weakness to preserve thee!

John Ford

#34. Love is a tyrant, resisted.

John Ford

#35. They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings.

John Ford