You're painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture. Richard Yates More Quotes by Richard Yates More Quotes From Richard Yates It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity. Richard Yates believepeoplethinking if you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail… it takes back bone to lead the life you want Richard Yates new-years-resolutionfailuresuccess And do you know a funny thing? I'm almost fifty years old and I've never understood anything in my whole life. Richard Yates funny-thingsfiftyyears 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 being-alonehonestydone Why did everything always change when all you wanted, all you had ever humbly asked of whatever God there might be, was that certain things be allowed to stay the same? Richard Yates certainwantedmight 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 tragedysimplelying Never say anything that doesn't improve on silence. Richard Yates silencesay-anything He couldn't even tell whether he was angry or contrite, whether it was forgiveness he wanted or the power to forgive. Richard Yates forgivenessforgivingwanted No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying. Richard Yates truthlyingreality The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy. Even at night, as if on purpose, the development held no looming shadows and no gaunt silhouettes. It was invincibly cheerful, a toyland of white and pastel houses whose bright, uncurtained windows winked blandly through a dappling of green and yellow leaves … A man running down these streets in desperate grief was indecently out of place. Richard Yates griefrunningnight A man could rant and smash and grapple with the State Police, and still the sprinklers whirled at dusk on every lawn and the television droned in every living room. Richard Yates policementelevision You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don't like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me, buddy, you've got nothing to apologize for. Richard Yates nicesweetjobs 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 inability-to-lovedefinitionsinsane Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around. Richard Yates people What a subtle, treacherous thing it was to let yourself go that way! Because once you've started it was terribly difficult to stop; soon you were saying "I'm sorry, of course you're right", and "Whatever you think is best", and "you're the most wonderful and valuable thing int he world", and the next thing you knew all honesty, all truth, was as far away and glimmering, as hopelessly unattainable as the world of the golden people. Richard Yates honestysorrythinking She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was? Had she ever had a less selfish, more complicated reason for doing anything in her life? Richard Yates selfishcomplicatedreason I'm only interested in stories that are about the crushing of the human heart. Richard Yates crushstoriesheart Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort. Richard Yates endlesssourcecomfort Can you really think artists and writers are the only people entitled to lives of their own? Richard Yates artists-and-writersartistpeople 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 youngest and healthiest passengers on the train, he sat with the look of a man condemned to a very slow, painless death. He felt middle-aged. Richard Yates coffeemorningnight
