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John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 22

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

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.

Luck, Want, Too Much

John Steinbeck (1993). “The Pearl”, p.26, Penguin

I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background.

Book, Writing, Character

John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.133, Penguin

In the streets of New York between seven and nine in the morning you will see the slow procession of dog and downer proceeding from street to tree to hydrant to trash basket. They are apartment dogs. They are taken out twice a day, and, while it is a cliché, it is truly amazing how owner and dog resemble each other. They grow to walk alike and have the same set of head.

Dog, Morning, New York

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

Nature, Sunset, Clouds

John Steinbeck (1997). “The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism”, Penguin Group USA

We have not known a single great scientist who could not discourse freely and interestingly with a child. Can it be that haters of clarity have nothing to say, have observed nothing, have no clear picture of even their own fields?

Children, Science, Fields

John Steinbeck (1995). “The Log from the Sea of Cortez”, p.80, Penguin

He is so stupid you can't trust him with an idea.

Sarcastic, Stupid, Ideas

John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.157, Penguin

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

Death, Two, Eden

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.363, Penguin

Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own history based on, but not limited by, facts.

Texas, Passionate, Facts

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.177, Penguin

Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.

Syntax, Republic, Lad

The Atlantic magazine, November 1969.

Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork.

Prayer, Meat, Pork

John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.201, Hamilton Books

Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

Hair, Feet, Hoarse Voice

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.8, Penguin

Pictures... are also opinions... [they] set down what the camera operator sees and he sees what he wants to see and what he loves and hates and pities and is proud of.

Hate, Cameras, Want

Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life. While there remains even a plaintive memory, a person cannot be cut off, dead. And he thought, “It’s a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man’s life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness.

Memories, Cutting, Men

John Steinbeck (1994). “Novels and Stories, 1932-1937”

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.

Book, Reality, Design

John Steinbeck (1995). “The Log from the Sea of Cortez”, p.29, Penguin

Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to

Guy, Looks

Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species. --speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962

Responsibility, Games, Cities

John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.1250, Penguin UK

Many are the stories I have heard about myself. I have mistresses I have never met. When I hear that I am a sodomist and a zoophalist then I shall know that I have reached the high point of fame, but I suppose I can hardly expect such exaltation for many years.

Years, Mistress, Exaltation

It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

Responsibility, Thinking, Awards

William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck (1971). “William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill [and] John Steinbeck”

Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good -- Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music.

Beach, Morning, Eye

John Steinbeck (2009). “The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.465, Penguin

When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find himself a good and sufficient reason for going.

Sweet, Men, Firsts

John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.8, Penguin

With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

Luxury, People, Want

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.474, Penguin

Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?

Baby, Eggs, Shapes

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.108, Penguin

It was a day as different from other days as dogs are from cats and both of them from chrysanthemums or tidal waves or scarlet fever.

Dog, Cat, Different

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.201, Penguin

When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something--anything--before it is all gone.

Thinking, Guilt, Inward

John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.150, Penguin

To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself.

Monsters, Normal, Seems

John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.66, Penguin

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