John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters," and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.During his writing career, he authored 33 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row , the multi-generation epic East of Eden , and the novellas Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony . The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies.Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists. Wikipedia
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.”
“In Awe of Words,” The Exonian, 75th anniversary edition, Exeter University (1930)
Context: We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — ”Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.
“I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.”
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Variant: If you're in trouble or hurt or need–go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help–the only ones.
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“Can you honestly love a dishonest thing?”
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday
Source: Sweet Thursday
“Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.”
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden
“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.”
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), unplaced by chapter
“It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.”
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden
“I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.”
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“Men really do need sea-monsters in their personal oceans”
John Steinbeck book The Log from the Sea of Cortez
Source: The Log from the Sea of Cortez
“You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.”
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Pt. 3
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we.”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“I guess I'm trying to say, Grab anything that goes by. It may not come around again.”
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Pt. 3
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men
Source: Of Mice and Men (1937), Ch. 2, p. 36
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: Maybe that's the reason," Adam said slowly, feeling his way. "Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe-maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe — why, maybe it's a kind of reverse.
“Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“Intention, good or bad, is not enough.”
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.”
John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath
Source: The Grapes of Wrath
“Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.”
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden
“I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless.”
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Pt. 2
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
