John Steinbeck Quotes

But a man needs company.

Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby those fruits may be eaten.

The American girl makes a servant of her husband and then finds him contemptible for being a servant

If you are in love-that's a good thing-that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.

Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own history based on, but not limited by, facts.

Some men ease themselves like setting hens into the nest of death.

Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.

Misfortune is a fact of nature acceptable to women, especially when it falls on other women.

A dog is a bond between strangers.

It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.

life passes by in a wink so try to never miss a moment of it

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to.

She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.

Doc still loved true things but he knew that it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.

Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?

They're a dark people with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It's said that without whiskey to soak and soften the world, they'd kill themselves. (Irish)

Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork.

'He's got a can up there,' Richard said.

Man has become our greatest hazard, and our only hope.

If you want to keep a friend, never test him.

I have the instincts of a minstrel rather than those of a scrivener. There you have it. We are not of the same trade at all and so how can your rules fit me?

Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now." "Sure right now. I gotta. We gotta.

The people in flight from the terror behind-strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.

I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.

I have no interest in the printed word. I would continue to write if there were no writing and no print. I put my words down for a matter of memory. They are more made to be spoken than to be read.

I have seen too many men go down, and I never permit myself to forget that one day, through accident or under the charge of a younger, stronger knight, I too will go down.

Pictures... are also opinions... [they] set down what the camera operator sees and he sees what he wants to see and what he loves and hates and pities and is proud of.

All of them had a restlessness in common.

I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times.

Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him.

The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous...but not quite.

The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.

It is a nice thing to be working and believing in my work again. I hope I can keep the drive. I only feel whole and well when it is this way.

For the first time I am working on a book that is not limited and that will take every bit of experience and thought and feeling that I have.

Show me the man who isn't interested in discussing himself.

A man who gets few letters does not open one lightly.

It was too nerve-wracking, a shocking spectacle, like seeing an old, calm friend go insane.

There is one thing pleasantly unconfusing about medicine. The direction and the end are fixed and the patient never works backward.

But you can't start over Only a boy can start over You and me Why, we're all that's been

A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength. .. When any living organism is attacked, its whole function seems to aim towards reproduction.

For many years we have suckled on fear and fear alone, and there is no good product of fear.

I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand.

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal.

I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it.

There's an awful lot of inactive kindness which is nothing but laziness, not wanting any trouble, confusion, or effort.

I know three things will never be believed - the true, the probable, and the logical

For every man in the world functions to the best of his ability, and no one does less than his best, no matter what he may think about it.