John Steinbeck Quotes

This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal.

No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe

And finally comes culture, which is entertainment, relaxation, transport out of the pain of living.

Fella in business got to lie an' cheat, but he calls it somepin else. That's what's important. You go steal that tire an' you're a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.

The 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.

If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.

In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence, but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.

You stay out here a little while, an' if you smell any roses, you come let me smell, too.

Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own history based on, but not limited by, facts.

A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. Remember this thing. I have known boys forty years old because there was no need for a man.

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.

People need responsibility. They resist assuming it, but they cannot get along without it.

The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash--all of them--surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered in rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.

I would like to sit still for a while but I'm restless you know and sitting still is only an ideal like celibacy and complete cleanliness.

So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.

A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it.

You can't slice up morals.

You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.

It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it and at the same time not to know anything about it.

life passes by in a wink so try to never miss a moment of it

There's nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can't see or hear or touch a man, it's best to let him go.

We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome.

Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans

She wasn't happy, but then she wasn't unhappy. She wasn't anything. But I don't believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing. This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.

The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental.

Change was everywhere. People were gone, or changed, and that was almost like being gone.

But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor.

The theater is the only institution in the world which has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed. It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive.

In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

Many are the stories I have heard about myself. I have mistresses I have never met. When I hear that I am a sodomist and a zoophalist then I shall know that I have reached the high point of fame, but I suppose I can hardly expect such exaltation for many years.

Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.

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.

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.

Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant.

I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

I believe that love cannot be bought except with love.

I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it.

Anything that just costs money is cheap.

And their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels.

Men really need sea-monsters in their personal oceans. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.

When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction - and that was conversation.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.