Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
John SteinbeckIf a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a ruleโa great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.
John SteinbeckThe craft of writing is the art of penetrating other minds with the figures that are in your own mind.
John SteinbeckWhen I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. I fear the disease is incurable.
John SteinbeckJust set one day's work in front of the last day's work. That's the way it comes out. And that's the only way it does.
John SteinbeckIt is strange how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn't thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It's a safety place. Everyone must have one, although I never heard a man tell of it.
John Steinbeck