That’s how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that’s what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and ‘settle down’ when they have families.
Richard YatesIt always seemed to me," she said at last, "that it must require a great deal of courage to be an artist, if only because the creative process is such a lonely one. I should imagine it must be all the more difficult for a woman.
Richard YatesThen he was gone, and Prentice was alone in a silence that rang with all his shrill, unspoken words. He was so alone that the only thing to do was lie back on the bed and roll over and draw up his knees like an unborn baby, staring with dry eyes at a cluster of pink flowers on the wallpaper, knowing he had never been so alone in his life.
Richard YatesSometimes in dreams there are visions of the past. For that reason Alice Prentice had always welcomed sleep, but she suffered an insomniac's dread of the time just before sleeping, the act of falling asleep itself, the perilous twilight of semi-awareness when the mind must struggle for coherence, when a siren or a cry in the street is the very sound of terror and the ticking of the clock is a steady reminder of death.
Richard YatesWhy couldn't she stop talking? Did all lonely people have that problem?
Richard YatesWhoever said you can't love ridiculous things? God knows i love you, and you're the most ridiculous woman I ever met!
Richard YatesI don't think about growing old," she said.
"I know you don't. That's one of the things I admire about you, Alice. You have some kind of boundless faith in the future. You never give up."
"I suppose I'm an optimist.
Remember what Anatole France said about the dog masturbating on your leg--'Sure, it's honest, but who needs it?
Richard YatesWarren 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 procedure, he had said "x number of dollars" three times.
Richard YatesAs a writer, I like the list of "things to strive for" that Richard Yates kept above his typewriter:
genuine clarity
genuine feeling
the right word
the exact English sentence
the eloquent detail
the rigorous dramatization of story
Tag: writers-on-writing writers-quotes advice-for-writers writer-guides writer-techniques
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