“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.”
― The Grapes of Wrath
― The Grapes of Wrath
“All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.”
― The Winter of Our Discontent
― The Winter of Our Discontent
“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
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“The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we.”
― The Grapes of Wrath
― The Grapes of Wrath
“Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.”
― The House of the Dead
― The House of the Dead
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