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“Time is the only critic without ambition.”

John Steinbeck

On Critics
Writers at Work (1977)

“For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.”

John Steinbeck book The Pearl

Source: The Pearl (1947), Ch. III

“Anything that just costs money is cheap.”

John Steinbeck

“What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden (1952)

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”

John Steinbeck book The Short Reign of Pippin IV

The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957), p. 102

“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“Time is more complex near the sea than in any other place, for in addition to the circling of the sun and the turning of the seasons, the waves beat out the passage of time on the rocks and the tides rise and fall as a great clepsydra.”

John Steinbeck book Tortilla Flat

Source: Tortilla Flat

“He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see?”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

“None of it is important or all of it is.”

John Steinbeck book The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Introduction
The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
Context: "... Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.

“A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes a reality along with other realities—never to be destroyed but easily to be attacked.”

John Steinbeck book The Pearl

Source: The Pearl (1947), Ch. III

“Ain’t many guys travel around together,” he mused. “I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“All great and precious things are lonely.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's
why.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men