The Wayward Bus is a novel by American author John Steinbeck, originally published in 1947. Steinbeck dedicated this novel to "Gwyn", presumably a reference to his second wife Gwyndolyn Conger. (They divorced less than a year after The Wayward Bus was published.) The novel's epigraph is a passage from Everyman, with its archaic English intact; the quotation refers to the transitory nature of humanity.
Although considered one of Steinbeck's weaker novels at the time of its original publication, The Wayward Bus was financially more successful than any of his previous works.
Read more about The Wayward Bus: Plot Summary, Adaptations, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words wayward and/or bus:
“Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.”
—David Lehman (b. 1948)
“I’d take the bus downtown with my mother, and the big thing was to sit at the counter and get an orange drink and a tuna sandwich on toast. I thought I was living large!... When I was at the Ritz with the publisher a few months ago, I did think, “Oh my God, I’m in the Ritz tearoom.” ... The person who was so happy to sit at the Woolworths counter is now sitting at the Ritz, listening to the harp, and wondering what tea to order.... [ellipsis in source] Am I awake?”
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