John steinbeck a life in letters quotes

“Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses.

And the thing we see isn’t very pretty.
Before the year is over, I think I will be looking back longingly on the Gulf of Lower California — that sea of mirages and timelessness.

John steinbeck a life in letters quotes and page

It is a very magical place.

It is cold and clear here now - the leaves all fallen from the trees and only the frogs are very happy. Great cheering sections of frogs singing all the time. The earth is moist and water is seeping out of the ground everywhere.

So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded.
Maybe you can find some vague theology that will give you hope.

Not that I have lost any