John Steinbeck: Trending quotes (page 12)

“But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.”

“… intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over…”

“Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money.”

“Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.”

“Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.”

“If a man ordered a beer milkshake he'd better do it in a town where he wasn't known.”

“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”

“Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.”

“It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.”

“Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.”

“I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully, it goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble.”

“There's an awful lot of inactive kindness which is nothing but laziness, not wanting any trouble, confusion, or effort.”

“Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.”

“An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.”

“Lord, how the day passes! It's like a life - so quickly when we don't watch it and so slowly when we do.”

“I nearly always write just as I nearly always breathe.”

“Once Charley fell in love with a dachshund, a romance racially unsuitable, physically ridiculous, and mechanically impossible. But all these problems Charley ignored. He loved deeply and tried dogfully.”

“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.”

“The flies have conquered the flypaper.”