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..."a man doesn't spend all these years building something and then kick it to pieces. Don't - well, to put it coarsely, don't shit where you eat."

— Richard Yates Disturbing the Peace (1975)

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More quotes by Richard Yates

It seemed only a few minutes later that he woke with a sense that the world was coming apart.

Disturbing the Peace (1975)

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.

Cold Spring Harbor (1986)

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

A Good School (1978)

"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."

Young Hearts Crying (1984)

Sumbitch wasn't even needed, that's the funny part; just some eager-beaver bastard couldn't mind his own business.

A Special Providence (1969)

All Richard Yates quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Richard Yates (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.