The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the town lets wither a time and die. – John Steinbeck
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. – John Steinbeck
No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. – John Steinbeck
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power. – John Steinbeck
Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry…. Both are very hard work. Writing something is almost as hard as making a table. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood. Both are full of tricks and techniques. Basically very little magic and a lot of hard work… – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, interview, The Paris Review, 1981