Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, “The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say.” I says, “What’s this call, this sperit?” An’ I says, “It’s love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.” And I says, “Don’t you love Jesus?” Well, I thought an’ thought, an’ finally I says, “No, I don’t know nobody name’ Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people. An’ sometimes I love ‘em fit to bust, an’ I want to make ‘em happy, so I been preachin’ somepin I thought would make ‘em happy.” An’ then — I been talkin’ a hell of a lot. Maybe you wonder about me using bad words. Well, they ain’t bad to me no more. They’re jus’ words folks use, an’ they don’t mean nothing bad with ‘em. Anyways, I’ll tell you one more thing I thought out; an’ from a preacher it’s the most unreligious thing, and I can’t be a preacher no more because I thought it an’ I believe it. I figgered out about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, “Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,” I figgered, “maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.” Now I sat there thinkin’ it, an’ all of a suddent—I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it.
Jim Casy, Chapter 4 of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
