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John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 19

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

Fella says today, 'Depression is over. I seen a jackrabbit, an' they wasn't nobody after him.' An' another fella says, 'That aint the reason. Can't afford to kill jackrabbits no more. Catch 'em and milk 'em an' turn 'em

Fella says today, 'Depression is over. I seen a jackrabbit, an' they wasn't nobody after him.' An' another fella says, 'That aint the reason. Can't afford to kill jackrabbits no more. Catch 'em and milk 'em an' turn 'em loose. One you seen prob'ly gone dry.

Gone, Ems, Dry

John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.319, Hamilton Books

Poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music.

Writing, Poetry, Mathematics

The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index.

Mountain, Use, Way

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.19, Penguin

No one knows my ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time.

Way, Pushing, Ability

People do not want advice - they want corroboration.

Life, People, Advice

We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human thought in a hundred years or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for thy can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.

Loss, Years, Joy

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.64, Penguin

We may be thankful that frightened civil authorities ... have not managed to eradicate from the country the tradition of the possession and use of firearms, that profound and almost instinctive tradition of Americans. Luckily for us, our tradition of bearing arms has not gone from the country, the tradition is so deep and so dear to us that it is one of the most treasured parts of the Bill of Rights - the right of all Americans to bear arms, with the implication that they will know how to use them.

Country, Rights, America

John Steinbeck (2009). “Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team”, p.31, Penguin

The curious hocus-pocus of criticism I can't take seriously. It consists in squirreling up some odd phrases and then waiting for a book to come running by.

Running, Book, Writing

John Steinbeck (1995). “The Long Valley”, p.7, Penguin

Strength and success; they are above morality, above criticism. It seems then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it.

Criticism, Morality, Seems

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.175, Penguin

Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.

Mind, Lions, Ants

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.158, Penguin

The candle aimed its spark of light at heaven, like an artist who consumes himself to become divine.

Artist, Light, Heaven

When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.

Mean, Men, Thinking

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.229, Penguin

There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that's the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln.

Mean, Squares, Hair

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.95, Penguin

My wife, my Mary, goes to her sleep the way you would close the door of a closet. So many times I have watched her with envy. Her lovely body squirms a moment as though she fitted herself into a cocoon. She sighs once and at the end of it her eyes close and her lips, untroubled, fall into that wise and remote smile of the Ancient Greek gods. She smiles all night in her sleep, her breath purrs in her throat, not a snore, a kitten's purr... She loves to sleep and sleep welcomes her.

Wise, Fall, Sleep

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.57, Penguin

Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them…I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb." "You can’t make a race horse of a pig." "No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig.

Horse, Children, Men

She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build laughter out of inadequate materials....She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall.

Strong, Hurt, Laughter

American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash--all of them--surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered in rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.

Cities, Mountain, Use

People don't want advice...only corroboration.

People, Advice, Want

I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.

Memories, Fall, Men

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.233, Penguin

Nobody changes. Nobody gets hurt.

Hurt

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

We have never understood why men mount the heads of animals and hang them up to look down on their conquerers. Possibly it feels good to these men to feel superior to animals, but does it not seem that if they were sure of it they would not have to prove it? Often a man who is afraid must constantly demonstrate his courage and, in the case of the hunter, must keep a tangible record of his courage.

Courage, Hunting, Animal

The great concepts of oneness and of majestic order seem always to be born in the desert.

Order, Oneness, Unity

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.118, Penguin

I need a dog pretty badly. I dreamed of dogs last night. They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them.

Dog, Night, Circles

John Steinbeck, Thomas Fensch (1988). “Conversations with John Steinbeck”, p.31, Univ. Press of Mississippi

The study of history, while it does not endow with prophecy, may indicate lines of probability.

Doe, Lines, May

John Steinbeck (2007). “The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication”, p.40, Penguin

Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.

Great Writing, Writers And Writing, Whole

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