John Steinbeck Quotes
-
If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.
-
'It has always seemed strange to me,' said Doc. 'The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success.'
-
The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.
-
Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.
-
Well, God knows he don't need any brains to buck barley bags. But don't you try to put nothing over, Milton. I got my eye on you.
-
'What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.'
-
You watch your place, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy, it ain't even funny.
-
To be alive at all is to have scars.
-
A little hope, even hopeless hope, never hurt anybody.
-
I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.
-
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.
-
'Ellen, only last night, asked, 'Daddy, when will we be rich?' But I did not say to her what I know: 'We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.' And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.'
-
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Opening sentence.
-
'Well, that glove's fulla vaseline.''Vaseline? What the hell for?'Well, I tell ya what - Curley says he's keepin' that hand soft for his wife.'
-
Time is the only critic without ambition.
-
Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.
-
Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.
-
He brought his malformed wisdom, his pool-hall, locker-room, joke-book wisdom to the front.
-
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
-
Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.
-
I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.
-
… we've got so many laws you can't breathe without breaking something.
-
Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Mary - do you hear? Who are you in there?
-
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.