“But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again. The bitterness we sold to the junk man - he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that's us; and when the tractor hit the house, that's us until we're dead. To California or any place - every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day - the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it.”

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About John Steinbeck

American writer and novelist

John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer and novelist. He lived in the 20th century and won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for his fiction and for writing that brought him wide and lasting readership. He was also an independent journalist and a war correspondent during World War II and the Vietnam War. His work was recognized by the Nobel committee for its realistic and imaginative style, with sympathy and social insight at its center.

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Books by John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

1937

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The Grapes of Wrath

1939

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East of Eden

1952

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The Red Pony

1937

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Cannery Row

1945

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