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John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 17

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

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

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

Guilt, Feels, Uneasy

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.51, Penguin

But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units -- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails.

Strong, Men, Thinking

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.16, Penguin

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.

Football, War, Team

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.126, Penguin

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.

Rip, Rags, Nerves

John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.160, Penguin

Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough

New York, Home, Good Enough

But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again.

Baby, Dust, Years

John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.69, Hamilton Books

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

Thinking, Advice, Mind

Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers.

Nature, Rocks, Orange

John Steinbeck (1993). “Cannery Row”, p.19, Penguin

Change was everywhere. People were gone, or changed, and that was almost like being gone.

People, Gone, Changed

John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.42, Penguin

It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it and at the same time not to know anything about it.

Accepting, Knows

John Steinbeck (2012). “Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.160, Penguin

On all levels American society is rigged. I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.

Country, Cynical, Levels

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.

Long, Tools, Literature

"Writers at Work". Book edited by George Plimpton, 1977.

There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good.

Evil, World, Magnificence

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.115, Penguin

Thou mayest rule over sin,' Lee. That's it. I do not believe all men are destroyed. I can name you a dozen who were not, and they are the ones the world lives by. It is true of the spirit as it is true of battles — only the winners are remembered.

Believe, Men, Fire

"The Portable Steinbeck: 2".

The land is so much more than its analysis.

Land, Analysis

John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.91, Hamilton Books

for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.

Pain, Emotion, Remember

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

It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be loved without satiety.

Would Be, Golden, Emotion

John Steinbeck (1995). “The Log from the Sea of Cortez”, p.48, Penguin

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

Friendship, People, Kind

The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the town lets wither a time and die.

Love, Sky, House

"Travels With Charley: In Search of America". Book by John Steinbeck, Part 2, 1962.

Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I know beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.

Fear, Believe, Dark

John Steinbeck (2007). “Travels with Charley and Later Novels, 1947-1962”

Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers.

Men, Thinking, Giving

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.234, Penguin

There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen.

Lying, People, Accounts

John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.21, Penguin

I wish to God I knew as much about writing as I did when I was 19. I was absolutely certain about most things then. Also, I suspect, more accurate.

Writing, Wish, Certain

I think there must have been some other girl printed somewhere in his heart, for he was a man of love and his wife was not a woman to show her feelings.

Girl, Heart, Men

John Steinbeck (2001). “Novels, 1942-1952”

The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

Mother, Men, Long Ago

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.11, Penguin

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