My Favorite Quote From John Steinbeck
It’s impossible to remember all the memorable quotes from John Steinbeck. One of the most influential and prolific American authors, Steinbeck wrote numerous incredible works like Of Mice and Men, The Grapes Of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Pearl.
But the quote I want to share with you comes from a memoir Steinbeck wrote called Travels With Charley, about a van life road trip he took around America with his dog.
Steinbeck spends the first few chapters of the book explaining his preparation for the trip, the longing neighbors experienced when they heard about his trip, and the support from his third wife, Elaine, to go on the trip.
Steinbeck writes the following:
“During the previous winter, I had become rather seriously ill with one of those carefully named difficulties which are the whispers of approaching age. When I came out of it I received the usual lecture about slowing up, losing weight, limiting the cholesterol intake. It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany. It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, "Slow down. You're not as young as you once were." And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this, they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it's such a sweet trap.
“Who doesn't like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men, they trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. I knew that ten or twelve thousand miles driving a truck, alone and unattended, over every kind of road, would be hard work, but to me it represented the antidote for the poison of the professional sick man. And in my own life, I am not willing to trade quality for quantity. If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It's bad theater as well as bad living. I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies. Although this last foundation for the journey was never discussed, I am sure she understood it.”
Beyond the rugged appreciation for the human experience, and especially the American male experience, I find this passage inspiring because of the middle. It’s so relatable as a creative person. I’ve had my own seasons of living violently, drinking hugely, eating and sleeping too much and too little, working way too hard or not at all.
For all the chasing I do of moderation, stability, and consistency, there are certainly times on all ends of every spectrum. And in Steinbeck’s eyes, this is magical in its own way, too.
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