“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.”
― Cannery Row
― Cannery Row
“Whatever view one takes of the outcome being affected by morale, it seems certain that the realm of illusion must be escaped before anything else.”
― Mortality
― Mortality
“All great and precious things are lonely.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”
― The Power of Myth
― The Power of Myth
“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
― The Winter of Our Discontent
― The Winter of Our Discontent
Marcus’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Marcus’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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