I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It's bad theater as well as bad living.
John SteinbeckYou know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future.
John SteinbeckOn all levels American society is rigged. I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.
John SteinbeckA kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.
John SteinbeckWhen I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.
John SteinbeckIt doesn't matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can't understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water?
John SteinbeckThe warfare between the unaroused male and female is constant and ferocious. Each blames the other for his loss of soul.
John SteinbeckAn unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.
John SteinbeckThere's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy
John SteinbeckAny man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him.
John SteinbeckThe quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we.
John SteinbeckThis monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me.
John SteinbeckTime interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy - that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.
John SteinbeckSocialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
John SteinbeckIt was too nerve-wracking, a shocking spectacle, like seeing an old, calm friend go insane.
John SteinbeckI should have known I am the rain. I am the land and I am the rain. The grass will grow out of me in a little while.
John SteinbeckAgain it might have been the American tendency in travel. One goes, not so much to see but to tell afterward.
John SteinbeckAnd then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely.
John SteinbeckSuch is the prestige of the Nobel Award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to speak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practised it through the ages.
John SteinbeckI ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.
John SteinbeckTrips to fairly unknown regions should be made twice; once to make mistakes and once to correct them.
John SteinbeckThe candle aimed its spark of light at heaven, like an artist who consumes himself to become divine.
John SteinbeckWe have not known a single great scientist who could not discourse freely and interestingly with a child. Can it be that haters of clarity have nothing to say, have observed nothing, have no clear picture of even their own fields?
John SteinbeckThey successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.
John SteinbeckThis is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.
John SteinbeckBut whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist-or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.
John SteinbeckHe said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god.
John SteinbeckThe last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man.
John SteinbeckWhen you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted - that's different. Somepin happens to you. You ain't strong: maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong." - Muley
John Steinbeck