I'm Very Militant, You Know,

But Your Book Is Wrong, Mrs. Strunk, Says George, When It Tells You That Jim Is The Substitute I Found For A Real Son, A Real Kid Brother, A Real Husband, A Real Wife. Jim Wasn't A Substitute For Anything. And There Is No Substitute For Jim, If You'll Forgive My Saying So, Anywhere.

I Certainly Should Have,' He Agrees, Smiling And Thinking What An Absurd And Universally-accepted Bit Of Nonsense It Is, That Your Best Friends Must Necessarily Be The Ones Who Best Understand You. As If There Weren't Far Too Much Understanding In The World Already; Above All, That Understanding Between Lovers, Celebrated In Song And Story, Which Is Actually Such Torture That No Two Of Them Can Bear It Without Frequent Separations Or Fights.

I Feel It's So Easy To Condemn This Country [the United States]; But They Don't Understand That This Is Where The Mistakes Are Being Made - And Made First, So That We're Going To Get The Answers First.

Sometimes Awful Things Have Their Own Beauty.

California Is A Tragic Country — Like Palestine, Like Every Promised Land. Its Short History Is A Fever-chart Of Migrations — The Land Rush, The Gold Rush, The Oil Rush, The Movie Rush, The Okie Fruit-picking Rush, The Wartime Rush To The Aircraft Factories — Followed, In Each Instance, By Counter-migrations Of The Disappointed And Unsuccessful, Moving Sorrowfully Homeward.