All feminine claws, he said to himself, are sheathed in velvet; but they can hurt a good deal if they touch you on the sore places of the defects of your qualities--even merely with the velvet.

— Ford Madox Ford

At the beginning of the war… I had to look in on the War Office, and in a room I found a fellow… What do you think he was doing…what the hell do you think he was doing? He was devising the ceremonial for the disbanding of a Kitchener battalion. You can’t say we were not prepared in one matter at least…. Well, the end of the show was to be: the adjutant would stand the battalion at ease; the band would play Land of Hope and Glory, and then the adjutant would say: There will be no more parades…. Don’t you see how symbolical it was—the band playing Land of Hope and Glory, and then the adjutant saying: There will be no more parades?… For there won’t. There won’t, there damn well won’t. No more Hope, no more Glory, no more parades for you and me anymore. Nor for the country…nor for the world, I dare say… None… Gone… Napier finny! No…more…parades!

— Ford Madox Ford

But always, at moments when his mind was like a blind octopus, squirming in an agony of knife-cuts, she would drop in that accusation.

— Ford Madox Ford

But to betray her with battalion... That is against decency, against Nature... And for him, Christopher titles, to come down to the level of the men you met here!

— Ford Madox Ford

But we who remain shall grow oldie shall know the cold Of cheerless Winter and the rain of Autumn and the sting Of poverty, of love despised and of disgraces, And mirrors showing stained and aging faces, And the long ranges of comfortless years And the long gamut of human fears... But, for you, it shall forever be spring, And only you shall be forever fearless, And only you have white, straight, tireless limbs, And only you, where the water-lily swims Shall walk along the pathways tho' the willows Of your west. You who went West, and only you on silvery twilight pillows Shall take your resting the soft sweet glooms Of twilight rooms...

— Ford Madox Ford

Every word that he had spoken amongst the amassed beauties of McMaster furnishings had been a link in a love-speech. It was not merely that he had confessed to her as he would have to no other soul in the world - 'To no other soul in the world,' he had said! - his doubts, his misgivings, and his fears; it was that every word he uttered and that came to her, during the lasting of that magic, had sung of passion. If he had uttered the word 'Come', she would have followed him to the bitter ends of the earth; if he had said, 'There is no hope', she would have known the finality of despair. Having said neither, she knew: 'This is our condition; so we must continue!' And she knew, too, that he was telling her that he, like her, was… oh, say, on the side of the angels.

— Ford Madox Ford

He was presumably a lover. They did things like commanding battalions. And worse!

— Ford Madox Ford

If you only would!" He added rather diffidently: "If you would not mind remembering that I am a military court of inquiry. It makes it easier for me to report to the general if you say things dully and in the order that they happened.

— Ford Madox Ford

I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.

— Ford Madox Ford

In every man there are two minds that work side by side, the one checking the other; thus emotion stands against reason, intellect corrects passion and first impressions act a little, but very little, before quick reflection.

— Ford Madox Ford