John Steinbeck Quotes
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Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.
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I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?
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Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.
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'It is so easy a thing to give-only great men have the courage and courtesy and, yes, the generosity to receive.'
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'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.'
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Time is the only critic without ambition.
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They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.
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We could live offa the fatta the lan’.
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I have never even wondered about the comparative standing of writers. I don't understand that. Writing to me is a deeply personal, even a secret function and when the product is turned loose it is cut off from me and I have no sense of its being mine. Consequently criticism doesn't mean anything to me. As a disciplinary matter, it is too late.
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… we've got so many laws you can't breathe without breaking something.
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I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.
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For a while I was a vicious fighter but it wasn't to win. It was to get it over and get the hell out of there. And I never would have done it at all if other people hadn't put me in the ring. The only private fights I ever had were those I couldn't get away from.
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I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.
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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.
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I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love.
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Life could not change the sun or water the desert, so it changed itself.
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No one wants advice - only corroboration.
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Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.
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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.
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A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.
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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.
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It is strange how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn't thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It's a safety place - everyone must have one, although I never heard a man tell of it.
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A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.
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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.