We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.

[Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

The break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.

I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.

I have starved and it isn't nearly as bad as is generally supposed. Four days and a half was my longest stretch. Maybe there are pains that come later. Personally I think terror is the painful part of starvation.

Every man in a bank hates what the bank does and yet the bank does it.