So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.

He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.

I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background.

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

He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.

The curious hocus-pocus of criticism I can't take seriously. It consists in squirreling up some odd phrases and then waiting for a book to come running by.