People From California

"He wondered why he stayed with her. Just pure laziness, he guessed. He didn't want to go through the emotional turmoil of leaving her. In spite of himself he'd worry about her and it was too much trouble. He'd need another woman right away and that took a lot of talking and arguing and persuading. It was different just to lay a girl but he would need a woman around, and that was the difference. You got used to one and it was less trouble.[…] But there was another reason too. She loved him. She really did. And he knew it. And you can't leave a thing like that. It's a structure and it has an architecture, and you can't leave it without tearing off a piece of yourself. So if you want to remain whole you stay no matter how much you may dislike staying. Juan was not a man who fooled himself very much."

"Her body and her mind were sluggish and lazy, and deep down she fought a tired envy of the people who, so she thought, experienced good things while she went through life a gray cloud in a gray room. Having few actual perceptions, she lived by rules. Education is good. Self-control is necessary. Everything in its time and place. Travel is broadening. And it was this last axiom which had forced her finally on the vacation to Mexico."

"Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men like himself who joined together in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him."

"He was a fine steady man, Juan Chicoy, part Mexican and part Irish, perhaps fifty years old, with clear black eyes, a good head of hair, and a dark and handsome face. Mrs Chicoy was insanely in love with him and a little afraid of him too, because he was a man, and there aren't very many of them, as Alice Chicoy had found out. There aren't very many of them in the world, as everyone finds out sooner or later."

"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "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."

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."

"You ain't worth a greased lack pin to ram you into hell."

"You watch your place, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy, it ain't even funny."

"I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand."

"They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head."

"Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody — to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody."

"We could live offa the fatta the lan’."

"Guy don't need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus' works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain't hardly ever a nice fella."

"His ear heard more than is said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought."

"A powerful, big-stomached man came into the bunkhouse."

"Ain't many guys travel around together. I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other."

"Well, that glove's fulla vaseline." "Vaseline? What the hell for?" "Well, I tell ya what — Curley says he's keepin' that hand soft for his wife."

"What the hell kind of bed you giving us, anyways. We don’t want no pants rabbits."

"Well, God knows he don't need any brains to buck barley bags. But don't you try to put nothing over, Milton. I got my eye on you."

"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, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration."

"He was very rich, he bought eggs to throw at a Chinaman. And one of those eggs missed the Chinaman and hit a policeman. So, Danny was in jail."

"Time is more complex near the sea than in any other place, for in addition to the circling of the sun and the turning of the seasons, the waves beat out the passage of time on the rocks and the tides rise and fall as a great clepsydra."

"Beans are a roof over your stomach. Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold."

"It was a glorious game. Theft robbed of the stigma of theft, crime altruistically committed—what is more gratifying?"

"What pillow can one have like a good conscience?"

"“It is worth while to be kind and generous,” he said. “Not only do such actions pile up a house of joy in Heaven; but there is, too, a quick reward here on earth. One feels a golden warmth glowing like a hot enchilada in one’s stomach.”"

"Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, and it would be an insensitive man who did not know it."

"It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leprous."

"The candle aimed its spear of light at heaven, like an artist who consumes himself to become divine."

"The story was gradually taking shape. Pilon liked it this way. It ruined a story to have it all come out quickly. The good story lay in half-told things which must be filled in out of the hearer’s own experience."

"It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning."

"It is a fact verified and recorded in many histories that the soul capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil. Who is there more impious than a backsliding priest? Who more carnal than a recent virgin? This, however, may be a matter of appearance."

"Two gallons is a great deal of wine, even for two paisanos. Spiritually the jugs may be graduated thus: Just below the shoulder of the first bottle, serious and concentrated conversation. Two inches farther down, sweetly sad memory. Three inches more, thoughts of old and satisfactory loves. An inch, thoughts of bitter loves. Bottom of the first jug, general and undirected sadness. Shoulder of the second jug, black, unholy despondency. Two fingers down, a song of death or longing. A thumb, every other song each one knows. The graduations stop here, for the trail splits and there is no certainty. From this point on anything can happen."

"If two generous paths branch from the highroad of life and only one can be followed, who is to judge which is best?"

""People die from typewriters falling on their heads." (talking about taking chances because you can die at any moment.)"

""They're all, 'Dude, we're sorry. We were just kids. Your know how kids are. Growing up' and I'm just like "Shut up!'" (talking about when he meets people from his high school.)"

"[When asked if he is going to go to his high school reunion] "Yeah, I can't wait. I'm going to show up in a helicopter.""

"You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same."

""We'll probably just play the greatest hits set again, give the people the shit they want to hear." (from a 2008 interview)"

""Some people are desperately looking for scapegoats, they just don't want to see the truth!" (Jon commenting on the parents that blame music for the violence.)"

""The kids out there want something they can relate to, something that's real; most of that whiny stuff isn't real. The cheesy pop songs just bore me to death." (commenting on how he feels about rock and pop.)"

""It's my purse."(talking about his sporran)"

""If he gets into drugs or something stupid like that, then I'll kick his ass, but otherwise he's got to live his life, even now." (talking about son and parenthood.)"

"The music industry can make you feel like a prostitute."

"The fans have been really incredible everywhere we've been....You want to make sure you put on the best concert of your life to show them how appreciative you are."

"I think I'm a clinical worrier, I worry about everything and I've always been that way. I want to make sure that everything works out as planned and I just get lost in my worries and fears. As if that isn't enough, I also worry about everybody else and try to carry their burden. It's like I'm trying to carry the weight of the whole world on my shoulders."

""When you’re really depressed it's good to hear someone be hurt too, when I get depressed I listen to my own fucking music. I put us on." (on his suicidal tendencies.)"

"I like reading Ball Tongue lyrics and all that stuff. And they published a book, and I wouldn't give my lyrics, and it's all wrong in the book, and I giggle. It's funny."

"The Internet is not for sissies."

"Note that I hold the single-author record for total CERT advisories, proving that in my copious youth I knew how to sling code but not how to manage risk."