Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor.

At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.

Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork.

I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.

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.

I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.