A Quote by 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

Quote Topics

Always Being Circumstances City Contaminated Could Deadly Dull Economic Environment Force Homes Important Important Thing Intelligent Jobs Just Keep Larger Like Live Might People Remember Stride Suburbs Take Thing Things Thinking Took Were

Quote Author

Richard Yates
American - Writer
February 3, 1926 - November 7, 1992

Happiness is often presented as being very dull but, he thought, lying awake, that is because dull people are sometimes very happy and intelligent people can and do go around making themselves and everyone else miserable. He had never found happiness dull. It always seemed more exciting than any other thing and capable of as great intensity as sorrow to those people who were capable of having it.

Ernest Hemingway

Peter was dull; he was at first Dull; - Oh, so dull - so very dull! Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed - Still with his dulness was he cursed - Dull -beyond all conception - dull.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Work is hard, and jobs can be dull. But you can't just take a holiday when you feel like it. You turn up because it is the right thing to do.

Katie Hopkins

They would always be a family, but if she'd learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn't a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn't control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

Kristin Hannah

For me, a novel relying too heavily on a single idea might be a dry, deadly thing unless it possesses an animating force.

Meg Wolitzer

The only thing you should have to do is find work you love to do. And I can't imagine living without having loved a person. A man, in my case. It could be a woman, but whatever. I think, what I always tell kids when they get out of class and ask, 'What should I do now?' I always say, 'Keep a low overhead. You're not going to make a lot of money.' And the next thing I say: 'Don't live with a person who doesn't respect your work.' That's the most important thing—that's more important than the money thing. I think those two things are very valuable pieces of information.

Grace Paley

I remember being taught in school that you would underline things that you liked. I remember just underlining everything as a kid, thinking, 'This has all gotta be important!' I would just underline the whole thing!

Paul Thomas Anderson

Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

Charles Bukowski

Journalism should be truthful and entertaining. You know, with news and important facts you can entertain people too. Have a little humor. Life isn't all that deadly all the time, but while you're having fun, tell the truth. If every word of a column is deadly serious, I can't read it. It makes me throw up.

Jimmy Breslin

In California, of course, they never break up couples at dinner for fear of what might happen if someone's husband were seated next to someone else's very young girlfriend. But dinners with couples seated next to one another are always deadly dull, which is why there are almost no good dinner parties in the entire state of California.

Nora Ephron

Soybeans really need an uplift, being on the dull side, but, like dull people, respond readily to the right contacts.

Irma S. Rombauer

Of all deadly sins, this is the most deadly, namely, that any one should think he is not guilty of a damnable and deadly sin before God.

Martin Luther

It can be said with complete confidence that any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be "interesting".

Peter Medawar

Remember that when you're young and your career feels like the most important thing, the most important thing is love and the relationships you have with people - boyfriend, friends and family. It's good to remember that.