He was born in fury and he lived in lightning. Tom came headlong into life. He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them. When he read his father's books, he was the first. He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day. His mind plunged like a colt in a happy pasture, and when later the world put up fences, he plunged against the wire, and when the final stockade surrounded him, he plunged right through it and out. And as he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow.
John SteinbeckMaybe-- 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?
John SteinbeckThe church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.
John SteinbeckWherever theyโs a fight so hungry people can eat, Iโll be there. Wherever theyโs a cop beatinโ up a guy, Iโll be there. If Casy knowed, why, Iโll be in the way guys yell when theyโre mad anโโIโll be in the way kids laugh when theyโre hungry nโ they know supperโs ready. Anโ when our folks eat the stuff they raise anโ live in the houses they buildโwhy, Iโll be there.
John SteinbeckI am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.
John Steinbeck