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Quote by Richard Yates

“Are artists and writers the only people entitled to lives of their own?”

Work

This novel delves into the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a seemingly perfect couple in the 1950s, as they navigate the challenges of their unfulfilling lives and the societal pressures of their time. more

Author

Richard Yates

Richard Yates (1926-1992) was an American novelist renowned for his unflinching portrayals of suburban American life and the disillusionment of the post-war middle class. His debut novel "Revolutionary Road" (1961) is now considered a classic of American literature. A World War II veteran, Yates wrote with raw honesty about the broken American Dream and the quiet desperation of ordinary lives. Though underappreciated during his lifetime, his work influenced generations of writers and gained recognition after his death. more

“When Death Comes When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world”

Life Death Poetry Living

Book:New and Selected Poems, Volume One

Source: New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“To fully communicate with people, you need to find tactics that would interest them”