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John Steinbeck Quotes about Literature

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Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

John Steinbeck
Men, Bait, Literature
John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.214, Penguin

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

John Steinbeck
Loneliness, Soul, Literature

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

John Steinbeck
Men, Literature, Being The Best
John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.64, Penguin

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

John Steinbeck
Loneliness, Trying, Literature
John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.8, Penguin

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of a human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed

John Steinbeck
Healing, Needs, Literature
John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.146, Penguin

It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.

John Steinbeck
Sick, Literature, Earth
"Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Fourth Series". Book edited by George Plimpton. Chapter "On Intent", 1977.

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.

John Steinbeck
Long, Tools, Literature
"Writers at Work". Book edited by George Plimpton, 1977.

Ever'body's askin' that. "What we comin' to?" Seems to me we don't never come to nothin'. Always on the way.

John Steinbeck
Literature, Body, Way
John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.100, Hamilton Books

Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.

John Steinbeck
Art, Men, Literature

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