"These are, more than half of them, violent stories, and all of them are beautiful stories. John Steinbeck has some strange affinity for violence, but he is never lost in it. There is always a warm sunshine in the background and an understanding of the simple belly satisfactions of life." [Of The Red Pony] "No one, I think, has ever caught the ecstasy of a small boy with his first horse more movingly...John Steinbeck can pack into a few paragraphs what many novelists stretch out over a whole book"--Lewis Gannett, New York Herald Tribune
