John M. Ford/Quotes

"It has been noted that an awful lot of Sixties sitcoms have variants on the premise of "Guy with Big Secret that will ruin his life if it gets out" -- he talks to his horse, his wife's a witch, his roommate is from Mars -- and it has also been noted that one could fill in the blank with "Uh, he's gay", without changing a whole lot."

- John M. Ford

"I'm very happy that the New York Times has spoken well of my stuff; who wouldn't be? But it's not a choice I made."

- John M. Ford

"People tell me they laughed hard enough to wake their spouses, that they've given away numerous copies to friends, and that it's the one Trek book they'll give to people they wouldn't expect to like others."

- John M. Ford, about How Much For Just The Planet?

"Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality."

- John M. Ford

"The language fictional characters use is chosen for effect, at least if the author is concentrating."

- John M. Ford

"There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't."

- John M. Ford

"We're not lost. We're locationally challenged."

- John M. Ford

"Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms."

- John M. Ford, about The Final Reflection

"A simple genre-fiction validation is the hero's winning the high-noon gunfight and being embraced by the schoolmarm while the bad guy is carried off to Boot Hill."

- John M. Ford

"Contemporary speech is as loaded with reference and allusion as any other, possibly more so; the fact that the allusions are to tabloid headlines or what happened on Buffy last night doesn't change that."

- John M. Ford

"I am... a mushroom On whom the dew of heaven drops now and then."

- John M. Ford