“ As a writer, I like the list of "things to strive for" that Richard Yates kept above his typewriter:genuine claritygenuine feelingthe right wordthe exact English sentencethe eloquent detailthe rigorou… Richard Yates
“ He's been living on the fringes of art for so many years, talking and talking about it, that he's come to expect all the prerogatives of being an artist without ever doing the work. I mean he's an art… Richard Yates
“ It haunted him all night, while he slept alone; it was still there in the morning, when he swallowed his coffee and backed down the driveway in the crumpled old Ford. And riding to work, one of the yo… Richard Yates
“ As an intense, nicotine-stained, Jean-Paul Sartre sort of man, wasn't it simple logic to expect that he'd be limited to intense, nicotine-stained Jean-Paul Sartre sorts of Women? Richard Yates
“ If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy. Richard Yates
“ I seem to have to lost confidence in just about everything else. I've come to believe that only a very, very few matters in the world can ever be trusted to make sense. Richard Yates
“ He found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didn’t try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders.…The whole poi… Richard Yates
“ I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in the sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctivel… Richard Yates
“ Do you know what the definition of insane is? Yes. It’s the inability to relate to another human being. It’s the inability to love. Richard Yates
“ Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.“Synchronise watches at oh six hundred,” says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds a re… Richard Yates
“ If you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone. Richard Yates
“ Don't worry, I can't be bothered! You're not worth the trouble it would take to hit you! You're not worth the powder it would take to blow you up. You are an empty, empty, hollow shell of a woman. I m… Richard Yates
“ If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail… it takes back bone to lead the life you want Richard Yates
“ Warren Cox, God knew, was no prize; a commercial person, a sales person, the kind of man who said things like "x numbers of dollars". At lunch today, laboriously trying to explain some business proced… Richard Yates
“ How small and neat and comically serious the other men looked, with their grey-flecked crew cuts and their button-down collars and their brisk little hurrying feet! There were endless desperate swarms… Richard Yates
“ With their mother lying in a coma twenty miles away, they clung together drunkenly and wept for the loss of their father. Richard Yates
“ And Emily had yet to shed a single tear. It troubled her all the way back to the city, and she rode with one hand sandwiched between her cheek and the cool, shuddering glass of the limousine window, a… Richard Yates
“ The whole point of crying was to quit before you cornied it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so ea… Richard Yates
“ He couldn't even tell whether he was angry or contrite, whether it was forgiveness he wanted or the power to forgive. Richard Yates
