Men really do need sea-monsters in their personal oceans

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.

Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of a human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed

Pictures... are also opinions... [they] set down what the camera operator sees and he sees what he wants to see and what he loves and hates and pities and is proud of.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. My three [great teachers] did not tell - they catalyzed a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprung wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable. But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff, became beautiful and very precious.