Richard Yates Quotes

“You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

“Whatever else his life might hold, there would be no more apologies.”

“Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.”

“Don’t ‘moral’ and ‘conventional’ really mean the same thing?”

“Nothing’s ever that black and white.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be loved by me?”

“Can you really think artists and writers are the only people entitled to lives of their own?”

“The important thing, always, was to remember who you were.”

“Oh, I’ve always known I had to be your conscience and your guts.”

“Even in those days she’d held herself poised for immediate flight; she had always been ready to take off the minute she happened to feel like it (“Don’t talk to me that way, Frank, or I’m leaving. I mean it”) or the minute anything went wrong.”