Richard YatesIf my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy.
About This Quote
The theme of this quote is the awareness that most human beings are alone and that this is a tragic thing. It’s a simple idea, but it's a good one. The reality that "most" people are alone is made much worse by the fact that those who claim to love us, those who say they care about our well-being, those who claim to want to do what's best for us, those who tell us they have our best interests at heart, those who say they know what's best for us, those who we think we can trust but then don't – these all leave us feeling alienated and alone.
Some Similar Quotes
- The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.
- The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
- Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
- I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.
More Quotes 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...
- If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy.
- Dying for love might be pitiable, but it wasn't much different, finally, from any other kind of dying.
- So it hadn’t been wrong or dishonest of her to say no this morning, when he asked if she hated him, any more than it had been wrong or dishonest to serve him the elaborate breakfast and to show the elaborate interest in his work,...
- You see? I don’t know what ‘mature’ means, either, and you could talk all night and I still wouldn’t know. It’s all just words to me, Frank. I watch you talking and I think: Isn’t that amazing? He really does think that way; these words...