A classic for a reason. Steinbeck’s prose is so beautiful, and his characters feel so real. The book feeds you little nuggets to ponder on without thrusting its philosophy on you. Will def be buying a physical copy to re-read and annotate at some point. 🤭

Some of my fave lines (& this is me narrowing it down lolz):

• “And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.”
• “You’re going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.”
• “But the Hebrew word, the word timshel - ‘Thou mayest’ - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’ - it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ […] It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man.”
• “There’s more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty.”
• “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

I found the author to be wishy washy in his arguments… he made more arguments for reform than he did for abolition. Otherwise, I thought this was a good primer on the history of policing and how the US has gotten to the state it’s in it today.