I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.

Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it.

To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.

Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.