"There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen."
John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday
"Now for many years we have suckled on fear & fear alone, & there is no good product of fear. Its children are cruelty & deceit & suspicion germinating in our darkness. And just as surely as we are poisoning the air with our test bombs, so are we poisoned in our souls by fear, faceless, stupid sarcomic terror."
John Steinbeck, Once there was a war.
“It has always seemed strange to me’ said Doc ‘The things we admire in men, kindness & generosity, openness, honesty, understanding & feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, & self interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.’
John Steinbeck, Cannery row.
"Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, & aesthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than they did about the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned & a tyre-pump belonged to the last man who picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords & not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo-Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered."
John Steinbeck, Cannery row.
John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday
"Now for many years we have suckled on fear & fear alone, & there is no good product of fear. Its children are cruelty & deceit & suspicion germinating in our darkness. And just as surely as we are poisoning the air with our test bombs, so are we poisoned in our souls by fear, faceless, stupid sarcomic terror."
John Steinbeck, Once there was a war.
“It has always seemed strange to me’ said Doc ‘The things we admire in men, kindness & generosity, openness, honesty, understanding & feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, & self interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.’
John Steinbeck, Cannery row.
"Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, & aesthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than they did about the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned & a tyre-pump belonged to the last man who picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords & not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo-Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered."
John Steinbeck, Cannery row.
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)