In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often, men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he wold not be moved to false action by anxiety or fear. Very few people learn this.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
We don’t have one big advantage so we have to weave a rope of many small advantages.
— Jeff Bezos
All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.
— Unknown
So Social Security will be broke in seven years. First Bernie Madoff, now this. It’s like Ponzi schemes don’t even work anymore.
– Bill Muse, Top 5 Rumination
I think there is only one book to a man. It is true that a man may change or be so warped that he becomes another man and has another book but I do not think that it is so with me.
— John Steinbeck, Journals of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters
East of Eden was the first book that I read by Steinbeck. It was moving and well written and rich with characters. Then I discovered Journals of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters and suddenly I felt I had been given a back stage pass to the mind of a writer.
Steinbeck had already written Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) when he set out to write East of Eden (1951). In the intervening years he lived through two divorces and served as a war correspondent. Despite the critical success of his earlier works, his standing as a major novelist had faded. As today’s quote reveals, Steinbeck also felt that he had not yet told the one story that was within him. His editor, Pascal Covici, did all that he could to encourage Steinbeck. Covici sent Steinbeck a number of notebooks and instructed Steinbeck to use them to write.
— John Kenneth Galbraith, economist