Cannery Quotes & Sayings

One does not need a faith in God. Sufficient is a faith in created things, that enables one to move among objects in the conviction that they exist, persuaded of the irrefutable reality of this chair, this umbrella, this cigarette, this friendship. He who doubts himself is lost, just as someone scared of failure in love-making fails indeed. We are happy in the company of people who make us feel the unquestionable presence of the world, just as the body of the beloved gives us the certainty of those shoulders, that bosom, that curve of the hips, the surge of these as incontestable as the sea. And one who is in despair, we are taught by Singer, can act as though he believed: faith will come afterwards. — Claudio Magris

And he didn't get tired or sleepy, for the beauty burned in him like fire. — John Steinbeck

Then the sun came up and shook the night chill out of the air the way you'd shake a rug. — John Steinbeck

Tucker: I'm glad it happened. because then I got to know who you really are.
Clara: Oh yeah? Who am I?
Tucker: A really, really spiritual, spoiled California chick.
Avery: Shut up.
Tucker: It's cool though. My girlfriend is an angel. — Cynthia Hand

I'm a big buffet dude, or I'm a big cheap-food-and-order-more-when-I-need-it dude. — Patrice O'Neal

No need to get a rumor heading through town that would end up like one of the salmon on the conveyor belt down at the cannery, the head and tail of the story cut off and the middle butchered up until it became something unrecognizable. — Sere Prince Halverson

They swallowed, tasted their tongues, sucked their lips, and there was a far-away look in their eyes.
Mack peered into his empty glass as though some holy message were written in the bottom. And then he raised his eyes. "You can't say nothin' about that," he said. "They don't put that in bottles. — John Steinbeck

The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomiants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. (Cannery Row) — John Steinbeck

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it. — Arthur C. Clarke

I was with PolyGram; that was the big label that I was with for the longest, like 12 years. — Roy Ayers

What first got me involved in politics was being 14, and a youth organizer comes to my house with a van full of 14 year old girls. "Hey, you want to go to the beach with us? But first we're going to go support the cannery workers' strike in Watsonville." — Boots Riley

Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. — John Steinbeck

If you don't like it here, Grandpa - " he said, and he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people who didn't want to live any more were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number he pronounced "naught." The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B." It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser," "Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?" "To — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Doc was more than first citizen of Cannery Row.
He was healer of the wounded soul and the cut finger. — John Steinbeck

Trust me, I never underestimate my charm or any of my other magnificent attributes. They work great on women. Alas, men tend to see me as an unwelcome rival. You, he might listen to. You're good at talking people into things."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm perched in the rafters of a cannery, at risk from a man-slaying magical creature, and spending time with a drunk, a gangster, and an assassin at ... what time is it? — Lindsay Buroker

My mother was a very wonderful woman. When she and my dad divorced, she moved to California and worked two jobs in the cannery at night and as a waitress during the day. But she saved enough money to establish a restaurant. — Dolores Huerta

He never forgot anything but he never bothered to arrange his memories. -Hazel, Cannery Row — John Steinbeck

And then the men lay down and put their heads in the girls' laps and looked up into their faces. And they smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret. — John Steinbeck

That is the way it is done, the way it has always been done. Frogs have every right to expect it will always be done that way. — John Steinbeck

With his dripping basket and flip-flapped up the hill. Then a car turned into Cannery Row and Doc drove up to the front of the laboratory. His eyes were red rimmed with fatigue. He moved slowly with tiredness. When the car had stopped, he sat still for a moment to let the road jumps get out of his nerves. Then he climbed out of the car. At his step on the stairs, the rattlesnakes ran out their tongues and listened with their waving forked tongues. The rats scampered madly about the cages. Doc climbed the stairs. He looked in wonder at the sagging door and at the broken window. The weariness seemed to go out of him. He stepped quickly inside. Then he went quickly from room to room, stepping around the broken glass. He bent down — John Steinbeck

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. — John Steinbeck

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row, and your magazine-husband who one day just had to go. And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show - who among them do you think would employ you? Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole, with your holy medallion which your fingertips fold. And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul - oh, who among them do you think could destroy you? — Bob Dylan

Doc turned in the seat and looked back. The disappearing sun shone on his laughing face, his gay and eager face. With his left hand he held the bucking steering wheel.
Cannery Row looked after the ancient car. It made the first turn and was gone from sight behind a warehouse just as the sun was gone.
Fauna said, 'I wonder if I'd be safe to put up her gold star tonight. What the hell's the matter with you, Mack?'
Mack said, 'Vice is a monster so frightful of mien, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.' He put his arm around Hazel's shoulders. 'I think you'd of made a hell of a president,' he said. — John Steinbeck

[Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing. — John Steinbeck

Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature. — John Steinbeck

Every time the government grows we lose more of who we are. — Glenn Beck

It is the hour of pearl - the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself. — John Steinbeck