John Steinbeck

“Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes,...”

“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”

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

“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

“Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.”