Quotes from book
Sweet Thursday

Name: Sweet Thursday
Author: John Steinbeck

Sweet Thursday is a 1954 novel by John Steinbeck. It is a sequel to Cannery Row and set in the years after the end of World War II. According to the author, "Sweet Thursday" is the day between Lousy Wednesday and Waiting Friday.

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

“Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

“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.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Sweet Thursday (1954)

“Well, I remember this girl. I am not whole without her. I am not alive without her. When she was with me I was more alive than I have ever been, and not only when she was pleasant either. Even when we were fighting I was whole.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday (1954), Ch. 20

“Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the Bastard Time.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Sweet Thursday (1954)

“No one knows how greatness comes to a man. It may lie in his blackness, sleeping, or it may lance into him like those driven fiery particles from outer space. These things, however, are known about greatness: need gives it life and puts it in action; it never comes without pain; it leaves a man changed, chastened, and exalted at the same time — he can never return to simplicity.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday (1954), Ch. 36

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