When you wrote it didn't matter if hysteria sometimes came up in your face and voice (unless, of course, you let it find its way into your "literary voice") because writing was done in merciful privacy and silence. Even if you were partly out of your mind it might turn out to be all right: you could try for control even harder than Blanche Dubois was said to have tried, and with luck you could still bring off a sense of order and sanity on the page for the reader. Reading, after all, was a thing done in privacy and silence too.
Richard YatesHe found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didnโt try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders. โฆ The whole point of crying is to quit before you coined it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted
Richard YatesYour cowardly self-delusions about โloveโ when you know as well as I do that thereโs never been anything between us but contempt and distrust and a terrible sickly dependence on each otherโs weakness- thatโs why. Thatโs why I couldnโt stop laughing about the Inability to Love, and thatโs why I canโt stand to let you touch me, and thatโs why Iโll never again believe in anything you think, let alone anything you say
Richard Yates