How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
And I drove as quietly as I could, for on this day I intended to drive a little west and then take the long road south down the long reach of Maine. There are times that one treasures for all one's life, and such times are burned clearly and sharply on the material of total recall. I felt very fortunate that morning. (2.3.47)
Steinbeck starts out being kind of worried about his memory. After all, this project is all about updating his fuzzy (and outdated) recall of his native land. However, apparently some things are impossible for him to forget, such as the vistas he got to gaze upon as he drove through Maine.
Quote #2
I can report this because I have a map before me, but what I remember has no reference to the numbers and colored lines and squiggles. (2.3.49)
Now Steinbeck is back to questioning his memory, suggesting that his memories bear no relationship to the orderly numbers, lines, and squiggles of the map.
Quote #3
One of my purposes was to listen, to hear speech, accent, speech rhythms, overtones, and emphasis. For speech is so much more than words and sentences. I did listen everywhere. It seemed to me that regional speech is in the process of disappearing, not gone but going. Forty years of radio and twenty years of television must have this impact. (2.5.80)
Steinbeck focuses a lot on how technology appears to be changing America, and one of the big things that disturbs him is how dialects are disappearing because of radio and television. He claims that he doesn't get to hear real regional speech pretty much until he gets into Montana.