Cannery Row (Cannery Row, #1)

by John Steinbeck

Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.

“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. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”