“I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.”

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More from John Steinbeck

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” John Steinbeck

“It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.” John Steinbeck

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