“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.”

— John Steinbeck

Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Context: When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.

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John Steinbeck366

American writer 1902–1968

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