Quotes Flashcards
Dusty land
‘Dust-blanketed land’
Woman caring for men
‘Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole’
Emerson concept of the oversoul-Casy
“Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of”
Men’s role in family
‘The citadel of the family’
Land is the people
‘This red land is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can’t start again’
The nucleus
‘Pa…Uncle John…Granpa… that was the nucleus’
Men’s and women’s work- Casy
‘They’s too much of it to split up to men’s or women’s work’
Machine men
‘The machine men, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love… he is contemptuous if the land and of himself’
Route 66
‘66 is the mother road, the road of flight’
Corruption, vagrants pay- Tom
“If I pay you half a dollar I ain’t a vagrant huh?”
Al and the car
‘Became the soul of the car’
Why they’re moving- Casy
“Movin’ cause they want somepin better’n what they got”
When Granpa died- Casy
“He died the minute you took ‘im off the place”
Quality of owning
‘The quality of owning freezes you forever into I and cuts you off forever from the We’
The highway and movement
‘The highway became their home and movement their medium of expression’
People separating- Ma
“It ain’t good for folks to break up”
What’s left- Ma
“What we got lef’ in the worl’? Nothin’ but us”
Change in family power
‘The eyes of the whole family shifted back to Ma. She was the power. She had taken control’
One family
‘They twenty families became one family’
Californian prosperity- Uncle John
“This here’s California an’ she don’t look so prosperous”
Okie
‘Okie means your scum’
Businessmen
‘The businessmen had the farms and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them’
Forgot the land
‘The farmer on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it’
Unused land
‘Unused land is a crime against thin children’
