"Dear Pat,

You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and said, 'Why don’t you make something for me?'

I asked what you wanted, and you said, 'A box.'

'what for?'

'To put things in.'

'What things?'

'Whatever you have,' you said.

Well, here's your box. Nealy everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts- the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.

And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you

And still the box is not full." - John Steinbeck

12 years after writing "The Grapes of Wrath", John Steinbeck crafts this almost biblical story of a family who moves to California. It covers 3 generations and explains that we are not cursed to be good or evil, but we have a choice of what we want to be and that choice is what makes us human. A deeply moving book, I already need to put it back on my to-be-read shelf to read again. 

"We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is." pg 413.

"In the Blood"- John Mayer

I also recently watched the movie! James Dean plays Cal fantastically.