Reviews - Travels with Charley in Search of America

1.58k reviews for:

Travels with Charley in Search of America

"The new American finds his challenge and his love in traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the townlets wither a time and die. And this, as I found, is as true in Texas as in Maine."

"If only I had done so-and-so, or had not said such-and-such – my God, the damn thing might not have happened."

"We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human thought in a hundred or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain."

"I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love, and it's difficult to analyze love when you're in it."

"Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland."

"There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that's the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln. Come to think of it, I've known a few, but not many. Wouldn't it be silly if the Constitution had been talking about a young man whose life centers around a whistle, a wink, and Wildroot?"

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts."

fuzzycat's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Wonderful snapshot of the US in the 1960s, as well as a reflection on life at that point from Steinbeck. Some of it felt extremely relevant today, and some was a good point of comparison for what's changed.

sarah_ls's review against another edition

4.0

This was so much fun :)

empinks's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous funny reflective slow-paced

jopreston's review against another edition

4.5

Excellent book to calm my brain after reading an intense Fantasy novel. John Steinbeck really knows how to describe America and it really holds up.

olivetree614's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging informative reflective

Content Warnings

haloclne's review against another edition

I said, "Officer, I've driven this thing all over the country-mountains, plains, deserts. And now I'm back in my own town, where I live and I'm lost."

He grinned happily. "Think nothing of it, Mac," he said. "I got lost in Brooklyn only Saturday. Now where is it you were wanting to go?"

And that's how the traveler came home again.