Context of "Of Mice and Men"

Context of the novel "Of Mice and Men"
John Steinbeck celebrated friendship; it mapped the contours of his life and art. "In every bit of honest writing in the world," he noted in a 1938 journal entry, "...there is a base theme. Try to understand men; if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always a base theme. Try to understand each other." These wor…