John Steinbeck Quotes

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“It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.”

“What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can read only a few and those perhaps not accurately.”

“I think I love you, Cal." -Abra
I'm not good." -Cal
Because you're not good." -Abra”

“When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.”

“Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.”

“There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”

“Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't let me catch you doing it! Now -- look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do.”

“Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.”

“They're a dark people with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It's said that without whiskey to soak and soften the world, they'd kill themselves. (Irish)”

“We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not.”

“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.”

“It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.”

“Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.”

“And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.”

“Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.”

“Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor.”

“I'll want to hear,' Samuel said. 'I eat stories like grapes.”

“I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.”

“We could live offa the fatta the lan’.”

“But you must give him some sign, some sign that you love him… or he'll never be a man. All his life he'll feel guilty and alone unless you release him.”

“The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.”

“I can still tend the rabbits, George? I didn't mean no harm, George.”

“For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.”

“Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.”

“Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.”

“You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”

“To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.”

“There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers…”

“Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.”

“When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to.”

“He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.”

“Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.”

“I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments”

“In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms”

“Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different.”

“Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.”

“And this you can know- fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”

“We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

“He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.”

“And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.”

“There are some times… when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow.”

“I'm jus' pain covered with skin.”

“You don't even know where I'm going."
"I don't care. I'd like to go anywhere.”

“As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many things he did not know about himself.”

“You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.”

“These too are of a burning color--not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.”

“Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.”

“It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.”

“Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now."
"Sure right now. I gotta. We gotta.”