The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules.

An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.

The American girl makes a servant of her husband and then finds him contemptible for being a servant

A wife is like a children's movie; always under-appreciated and without either, life would be incomplete.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

He never forgot anything but he never bothered to arrange his memories. -Hazel, Cannery Row

What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can only read a few and those perhaps not accurately.