Richard Yates

"Oh," Colby said. "I see."

" What d'you see? You really aren't much of a conversationalist, you know that? You 'see', What can you possibly 'see' from what little I've told you?"

then he came back and faced her again, trembling. "'Nice,'" he said. "'Nice,' Is that what you want? You want the world to be 'nice'? Because listen, baby. Listen, sweetheart. The world is about as nice as shit. The world is struggle and rape and humilation and death. The world is no fucking place for dreamy little rich girls from St. Louis, do you understand me?"

"Where are the windows?" he demanded, spreading his hands. "That's the question. Where does the light come in?"

It occurred to Jack that if he held the phone well away from his head Sally's voice would dwindle and flatten out and be lost in tinny gibberish, like the voice of an idiot midget.

We had a few beers and laughed more than we meant to and punched each other's arms; in the end, out on the sidewalk again, I think we shook hands about three times in saying goodbye. Just before turning away he said "Listen, though: don't look back too much, okay? You can drive yourself crazy that way."

"I think you'll find ordinary people are nicer than you give them credit for being"

"As my husband always used to say, who cares?"

"A lot of people care, Ann."

"Well, that's a nice thought, but try counting them up on your fingers. Name me four. Name me three."

Sometimes the world was just too fucking much.

"Well, marriage is funny, Mike", Harold said once with the wind whipping the vapor of his voice over his shoulder. "You can go along for years without ever knowing who you're married to. It's a riddle."

"You're right," Michael said. "It is."

"Then maybe once in a while you take a look at this girl, this woman, and you think: What's the deal? How come? Why her? Why me?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean, Harold."

"Try to remember this, men. The mark of a professional in any line of work - I mean any line of work - is that he can make difficult things look easy."

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.

Could a person really be cynical about everything in the world and still expect to have friends?