John Steinbeck

"I cant read ten pages of Steinbeck without throwing up. I couldnt read the proletarian crap that came out in the 30s; again you had sentimentalism — the poor oppressed workers."

"Books aint no good. A guy needs somebody — to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he aint got nobody."

"His ear heard more than is said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought."

"Guy dont need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he aint hardly ever a nice fella."

"Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play."

"They come, an they quit an go on; an every damn one of ems got a little piece of land in his head. An never a God damn one of em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Everbody wants a little piece of lan. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. Its just in their head."

"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success."

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."

"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then — the glory — so that a cricket song sweetens the ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished…"

"Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass."

"For every man in the world functions to the best of his ability, and no one does less than his best, no matter what he may think about it."

"Doc cried to no one, "Give me a little time! I want to think.[…] Everyone has something. And what has Suzy got? Absolutely nothing in the world but guts. Shes taken on an atomic world with a sling-shot, and, by God, shes going to win! If she doesnt win theres no point in living any more. "What do I mean, win?" Doc asked himself. "I know. If you are not defeated, you win"