For most of human history, 'literature,' both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written — heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labor created our world.

I think the reason these readers come back to me is because I represent their points of view. It may not be my point of view, but that's OK. Everyone still deserves to have their say.

I don't know the literary world; I was scared of being confronted with famous names, not knowing what they had written. It was occupied territory I was entering.

In an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single, homogenous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.

Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.

I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it.