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John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 13

All Quotes Ambition Art Business Challenges Chaos Character Children Choices Confusion Country Criticism Design Desire Doubt Dying Earth Effort Evil Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Freedom Friendship Giving Gold Greatness Greed Guilt Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell Home Honesty Horror House Hunger Hurt Inspirational Journey Joy Kindness Laughter Life Literature Loneliness Loss Love Luck Lying Magic Mathematics Memories Morning Mountain Nature Obsession Pain Past Philosophy Pleasure Prayer Pride Quality Rain Reading Reality Responsibility Running Sadness Science Sickness Sin Singing Sleep Socialism Son Sorrow Soul Struggle Suffering Summer Teaching Travel Understanding Waiting Wall War Water Wife Winning Winter Worry Writing

New York is a wonderful city... It is going to be the capital of the world.

New York is a wonderful city... It is going to be the capital of the world.

New York, Cities, World

Socialism never took root in America.

Roots, America, Socialism

Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world, of all living things.

World, Life Or Death, Lordship

John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.147, Penguin

I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.

Children, Thinking, Joy

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.25, Penguin

Oh, the strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!

Taste, Used, Lost

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.113, Penguin

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.

New York, Children, Dirty

John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.44, Penguin

I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

Gun, Causes, Cop

No one knows how greatness comes to a man. It may lie in his blackness, sleeping, or it may lance into him like those driven fiery particles from outer space. These things, however, are known about greatness: need gives it life and puts it in action; it never comes without pain; it leaves a man changed, chastened, and exalted at the same time--he can never return to simplicity.

Pain, Lying, Sleep

John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.316, Penguin

The proofs that God does not exist are very strong, but in lots of people they are not as strong as the feeling that He does.

Strong, People, Feelings

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.64, Penguin

I dislike helplessness in other people and in myself, and this is by far my greatest fear of illness.

Greatest Fear, People, Sickness

John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.710, Penguin

I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straitening shyness that assail one. It is as though the words were not only indelible but that they spread out like dye in water and color everything around them. A strange and mystic business, writing.

Prayer, Writing, Color

John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.12, Penguin

The clouds appeared and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore.

Clouds, Trying

Best thing is to get the words down every day. And it is time to start now.

Best Things

John Steinbeck (1990). “Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath”, p.54, Penguin

A book is somehow sacred. A dictator can kill and maim people, can sink to any kind of tyranny and only be hated, but when books are burned the ultimate in tyranny has happened. This we cannot forgive.

Book, People, Forgiving

John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.144, Penguin

But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.

Cat, Men, Thinking

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, Penguin

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. It's scary to think about. Point of reference again. When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.

Thinking, Two, People

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.77, Penguin

I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.

Writing, Joy, Texture

John Steinbeck, Thomas Fensch (1988). “Conversations with John Steinbeck”, p.95, Univ. Press of Mississippi

A study of animal communities has this advantage: they are merely what they are, for anyone to see who will and can look clearly; they cannot complicate the picture by worded idealisms, by saying one thing and being another; here the struggle is unmasked and the beauty is unmasked.

Struggle, Animal, Community

Edward Flanders Ricketts, John Steinbeck (1978). “The Outer shores”

The last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man.

Men, Mind, Needs

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

Angel, Eden, Devil

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.116, Penguin

An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.

Dream, Ocean, Sleep

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.

Enough, Intention

You can't slice up morals.

Moral

John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.93, Penguin

It don't cost money to ask.

Cost, Asking, Asks

John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.50, Hamilton Books

Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.

Luck, Bitter

John Steinbeck (1993). “The Pearl”, p.39, Penguin

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