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.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.

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

There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-"The sky is falling," cried Henny-Penny, "and a piece of it fell on my tail.