The place had filled him with a sense of wisdom hovering just out of reach, of unspeakable grace prepared and waiting just around the corner, but he'd walked himself weak down its endless blue streets and all the people who knew how to live had kept their tantalizing secret to themselves.
("Revolutionary Road")
More Quotes from Richard Yates:
Intelligent, thinking people could take things like this in their stride, just as they took the larger absurdities of deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs. Economic circumstances might force you to live in this environment, but the important thing was to keep from being contaminated. The important thing, always, was to remember who you were.Richard Yates
Are artists and writers the only people entitled to lives of their own?
Richard Yates
They could lie drowsing now under the sound of kindly voices in the living room, a sound whose intricately rhythmic rise and fall would slowly turn into the shape of their dreams. And if they came awake later to turn over and reach with their toes for new cool places in the sheets, they knew the sound would still be there-one voice very deep and the other soft and pretty, talking and talking, as substantial and soothing as a blue range of mountains seen from far away.
Richard Yates
He took each fact as it came and let it slip painlessly into the back of his mind, thinking, Okay, okay, I'll think about that one later; and that one; and that one; so that the alert, front part of his mind could remain free enough to keep him in command of the situation.
Richard Yates
Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around.
Richard Yates
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Based on Topics: People Quotes, Sense & Perception Quotes, Wisdom & Knowledge QuotesBased on Keywords: tantalizing
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I have enjoyed acting very much, because I know it's not for real!
Gloria Stuart
You, the actor, must be aware of when you're being funny, but the character you're playing should always be oblivious to the fact.
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