John Steinbeck, in Travels With Charley (1962)
“
A city on hills has it over flat-land places. . . . This gold and white acropolis rising wave on wave against the blue of the Pacific sky was a stunning thing, a painted thing, like a picture of a mediaeval Italian city which can never have existed.
— John Steinbeck on San Francisco
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "A city on hills has it over flat-land places. . . . This gold and white acropolis rising wave on wave against the blue of the Pacific sky was a stunning thing, a painted thing, like a picture of a mediaeval Italian city which can never have existed." in the context of "John Steinbeck, in Travels With Charley (1962)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "San Francisco" (Quotes: Alphabetized by author or source, S)
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) was an American writer. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, his works include the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Great Depression.
About John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) was an American writer. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, his works include the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Great Depression.
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