Travels With Charley: In Search of America

by John Steinbeck

If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.”

He considered the wastefulness he saw everywhere around him and lack of caring for the environment as part of a greater malaise that seemed to have overwhelmed America.

I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage.