Ashley Readel

“The gilded chairs covered with their worn tapestry were set about stiffly like too many servants with nothing to do.”
― John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

“It took Doc longer to go places than other people. He didn’t drive fast and he stopped and ate hamburgers very often.”
― John Steinbeck, The Short Novels of John Steinbeck

“For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured—disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui—in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“But as time went on the gopher began to be a little impatient, for no female appeared. He sat in the entrance of his hole in the morning and made penetrating squeaks that are inaudible to the human ear but can be heard deep in the earth by other gophers. And still no female appeared. Finally in a sweat of impatience he went up across the track until he found another gopher hole. He squeaked provocatively in the entrance. He heard a rustling and smelled female and then out of the hole came an old battle-torn bull gopher who mauled and bit him so badly that he crept home and lay in his great chamber for three days recovering and he lost two toes from one front paw from that fight.”
― John Steinbeck, The Short Novels of John Steinbeck