Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good -- Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music.
John SteinbeckA man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?
John SteinbeckI'm back with my own kind of people here now, the bums and drinkers and no goods and it is a fine thing.
John SteinbeckLuck or tragedy, some people get runs. Then of course there are those who divide it even, good and bad, but we never hear of them. Such a life doesn't demand attention. Only the people who get the good or bad runs.
John SteinbeckTo the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.
John SteinbeckI am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.
John SteinbeckHe had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.
John SteinbeckHow can the poem and the stink and the grating noise - the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream - be set down alive?
John SteinbeckIn Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb VACILAR... It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction.
John SteinbeckI don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.
John Steinbeckfor how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.
John SteinbeckBut 'Thou mayest!'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win
John SteinbeckA few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.
John SteinbeckAt about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.
John SteinbeckMy wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and power and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size.
John SteinbeckA day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cates, dogs, butterflies and people.
John Steinbeck...men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them.
John SteinbeckA writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.
John SteinbeckA journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policies and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.
John SteinbeckThere's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not.
John SteinbeckOh, the strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!
John SteinbeckThis is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".
John SteinbeckA dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory
John SteinbeckOne day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards.
John SteinbeckWhat good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? You only truly, deeply appreciate and are grateful for something when you compare and contrast it to something worse.
John SteinbeckThe dairy man had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and he must have had some training in philosophy. He liked what he was doing and he didn't want to be somewhere else - one of the few contented people I met in my whole journey.
John SteinbeckI believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.
John SteinbeckYou're getting well,' Samuel said. 'Some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around.
John SteinbeckIt isn't like the rest of the country - it is like a nation itself - more tolerant than the rest in a curious way. Littleness gets swallowed up here. All the viciousness that makes other cities vicious is sucked up and absorbed in New York.
John SteinbeckA man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders.
John Steinbeck