A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination, why they never wrote about the present. This bothered me until I realized why - that a novelist wants to know how it comes out, that he can't be omnipotent writing a book about the present, particularly this one.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

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

it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.