Cannery Row Quotes
"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."
"Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody."
"And perhaps that might be the way to write this book—to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves."
"Lee Chong’s grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply."
"He trusted his clients until further trust became ridiculous."
"It was deeply a part of Lee’s kindness and understanding that man’s right to kill himself is inviolable, but sometimes a friend can make it unnecessary."
"Mack and his friends approached contentment casually, quietly, and absorbed it gently."
"Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place."
"Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him."
"He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure."
"It is a time of great peace, a deserted time, a little era of rest."
"The sea gulls come flapping in to sit on the cannery roofs to await the day of refuse."
"The rush and drag of the waves can be heard as they splash in among the piles of the canneries."
"Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row."
"‘Mack,’ he says, ‘I figure a guy that needs it bad enough to make up a lie to get it, really needs it,’ and he give me the buck."
"There is a tiny curved beach in front of the station, a miniature beach between little reefs."
"The fine smell of seaweed came from the exposed rocks."
"They smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret."
"It is a hard job to pour a small drink from a five-gallon keg."
"Mack peered into his empty glass as though some holy message were written in the bottom."
"You can't say nothin' about that," he said. "They don't put that in bottles."
"I don't think I ever tasted nothin' as good as that," he said.
"My wife is a wonderful woman," he said in a kind of peroration. "Most wonderful woman. Ought to of been a man. If she was a man I wouldn' of married her."
"I never did roll a drunk and I ain't gonna start now," said Mack.
"He's a real nice fella," said Mack. "After you get him feelin' easy, that is."
"I don't think I ever had such a fine trip," said Mack.
"Wouldn't it be easier to pour out some in a pitcher? You're liable to spill it that way."
"They sang to the stars, to the waning moon, to the waving grasses."
"It wasn’t only that the fish ran in silvery billions and money ran almost as freely."
"I’ve been so dog tired my pants was draggin’ and then I’ve went to a party and felt fine."
"He didn’t drive fast and he stopped and ate hamburgers very often."
"It was like a shrimp ice cream. Once the thing got into your head you couldn’t forget it."
"He purposely didn’t look at the milk shake machines lined up so shiny against the back wall."
"In the dawn he awakened, looked out through the windshield and saw that the water was already retreating down the bouldery flat."
"On the bottoms lie the incredible refuse of the sea, shells broken and chipped and bits of skeleton, claws, the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble."
"No one mentioned it and yet it was there haunting everyone."
"If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known."
"I don’t want to see you lose nothing so we’ll make over to you twenty-five frogs for a buck."
"She couldn’t stand it any more. If I done a good thing it got poisoned up some way."
"It don’t do no good to say I’m sorry. I been sorry all my life."
"There are two possible reactions to social ostracism—either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. This last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma."
"It has always seemed strange to me. The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success."
"In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean."
"I think they survive in this particular world better than other people."
"I was glad when you hit me," Mack went on. "I thought to myself—‘Maybe this will teach me. Maybe I’ll remember this.’ But, hell, I won’t remember nothin’. I won’t learn nothin’."
"It’s all right not to believe in luck and omens. Nobody believes in them. But it doesn’t do any good to take chances with them and no one takes chances."
"It’s all fine to say, 'Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget'—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change."
"As Frankie listened the welcome died in his eyes."
"By making careful preparations, by foreseeing possibilities, Doc hoped to make this party as non-lethal as possible without making it dull."
"He would follow his usual routine as though nothing were happening."
"There seemed to be a suppressed Oriental excitement at Lee’s."
"Mack and the boys were in the Palace and the door was closed."
"A well-grown gopher took up residence in a thicket of mallow weeds in the vacant lot on Cannery Row."
"Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool."
"Even now, I know that I have savored the hot taste of life Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast."