# Cold Spring Harbor

- Author: [Richard Yates](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates.md)
- Quotes: 10
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor

## Quotes

> Sometimes the world was just too fucking much.

p. 60 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/sometimes-the-world.md)

> And he was afraid she might be taking this much too seriously, so he reached out to stroke or tousle her hair, but that didn't work because she'd just been to the hairdresser and didn't want to get it messed up.

p. 62 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/and-he-was.md)

> One advantage of the very low lighting in this room, he'd decided, was that it could make almost any girl look like a million dollars.

p. 123 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/one-advantage-of-the.md)

> "Well, she's - sweet," he told her. "She's very sweet, and I guess that's part of the trouble. She's like a little girl - is a little girl.

p. 122 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/well-shes-sweet.md)

> And he didn't mind at all. Downstairs and outdoors and alone again, back in the trampled dust in front of the place, he pitied the drab supervisor and all her quick, harried, frowning children because none of them looked as though they had anything worth waiting for, tonight or ever.

p. 120 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/and-he-didnt-mind.md)

> Rachel became slowly aware now, even while talking and listening to her own voice, that there might well be something universal about the pleasure a grown girl could take in disparaging her mother. Maybe it happened with sons and their fathers, too, or with all grown children and the ever-diminishing presence of parents in their lives; in any case, the knowledge didn't prevent her from pressing on, as if to see how far she would dare to go.

p. 64 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/rachel-became-slowly.md)

> From the day of his talkative, overconfident arrival at Irving he had failed and failed at learning how not to behave like a jerk; and everybody knew what kind of life a jerk could expect at prep school.

p. 67 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/from-the-day.md)

> "Yeah, well, you're right, but what the hell; there's nothing anybody can do about it. Besides, that's ancient history now. I don't even think about it much any more, from - you know - from day to day."
>
> "Good," she said. "It's always important to keep the day-to-day stuff separate from the ancient history, isn't it."

p. 125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/yeah-well-youre.md)

> And he didn't know how to answer her (Well, maybe; maybe not; yes and no); so he didn't say anything. He opened a cold beer and sat down with it, knowing he'd need a little time and quiet to sort things out.
>
> "Look: just sit now, okay?" he told her. "Sit. Sit." And it sounded like a command given to a nervous, well-trained dog, but she obeyed him.

p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/and-he-didnt.md)

> Or was it possible that nobody's reasons could be all that clearly defined? Maybe men and women came together in ways as random and mindless as the mating of birds or pigs or insects, so that any talk of "reasons" would always be vain, always be self-deceiving and beside the point. Well, that would be one way of looking at it.

p. 46 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-yates/cold-spring-harbor/or-was-it-possible.md)