“She wasn't happy, but then she wasn't unhappy. She wasn't anything. But I don't believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing. This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.”

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.