John Steinbeck Quotes

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other.

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.

As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.

If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he'd better do it in a town where he wasn't known.

Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.

Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.

Socialism is just another form of religion, and thus delusional.

I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments

If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much - make it greedy, miserable and sick.

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.

I've lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.

It was a day as different from other days as dogs are from cats and both of them from chrysanthemums or tidal waves or scarlet fever.

A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.

Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

I guess this is why I hate governments, all governments. It is always the rule, the fine print, carried out by fine-print men. There's nothing to fight, no wall to hammer with frustrated fists.

We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.

I guess there are never enough books.

I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.

We don't take a trip. A trip takes us.

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do...Try to be better than yourself.

Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money.

His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper.

That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.

I'm back with my own kind of people here now, the bums and drinkers and no goods and it is a fine thing.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

There's nothing in the world like that first taste of beer.

One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards.

Father and son are natural enemies and each is happier and more secure in keeping it that way.

What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can only read a few and those perhaps not accurately.