Quotes from book

The Grapes of Wrath

“… and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

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

“The clouds appeared and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore.”

“If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.”

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

“For man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.”

“How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other.”

“And her joy was nearly like sorrow.”

“They's times when how you feel got to be kep' to yourself.”

“Yes, you should talk," he said. "Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin' man can talk the murder right out of his mouth.”

“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”

“You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk.”

“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

“He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.”

“I'm jus' pain covered with skin.”

“Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' I thought an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people.”

“The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we.”

“You got a God. Don't make no difference if you don' know what he looks like.”