Quotes About Richard Yates

It depressed him to consider how much energy he had wasted, over the years, in the self-denying posture of apology. From now on, whatever else his life might hold, there would be no more apologies.

The hell with this aching, suffering, callow, half-assed delusion that he was in "love" with her. The hell with "love" anyway, and with every other phony, time-wasting, half-assed emotion in the world.

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

Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Ironically, as Illinois Sen. Richard Yates pointed out, opponents of expansionism employed arguments extremely reminiscent of proslavery ideology, while its supporters upheld the principle that nonwhites could be successfully incorporated into the body politic. (No people, quipped Nevada Sen. James W. Nye, were "too degraded" for citizenship: "We have New Jersey, and all things considered, it has proven a success.")

I love Richard Yates, his work, and the novel, Revolutionary Road. It's a devastating novel.