“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.”
More from John Steinbeck
“If it is right, it happens — the main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away”
“A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.”
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
“There’s a responsibility in being a person. It’s more than just taking up space where air…”