Quotes & Sayings About Loneliness By John Steinbeck

Would I like to do a feature? Absolutely. — Michelle MacLaren

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done. — John Steinbeck

We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say - and to feel - Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought. — John Steinbeck

Two things form the bedrock of any open society - freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country. — Salman Rushdie

He stopped, feeling lonely in his long speech. — John Steinbeck

But the loneliness was still on Danny and demanded an outlet.
'Here we sit,' he began at last.
' - broken-hearted,' Pilon added rhythmically.
'No, this is not a poem,' Danny said. 'Here we sit, homeless. We gave our lives for our country, and now we have no roof over our head.'
'We never did have,' Pilon added helpfully.
Danny drank dreamily until Pilon touched his elbow and took the bottle.
'That reminds me,' Danny said, 'of a story of a man who owned two whore-houses
' His mouth dropped open. 'Pilon! my little fat duck of a baby friend. I had forgotten! I am an heir! I own two houses.'
'Whore-houses?' Pilon asked hopefully. 'Thou art a drunken liar,' he continued.
'No, Pilon. I tell the truth. The viejo died. I am the heir. I, the favourite grandson.'
'Thou art the only grandson,' said the realist Pilon. — John Steinbeck

The oldest theory of art belongs to the Greeks, who regarded art as an imitation (mimesis) of reality. The strength of that theory is that it explains the way in which art takes its materials from real life. — Leland Ryken

But she was also bewilderingly lonely ... Abra had lost her gift for being alone. — John Steinbeck

This is just a nigger talkin', an' a busted-back nigger. So it don't mean nothing, see? You couldn't remember it anyways. I seen it over an' over-a guy talkin' to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't hear or understand. The thing is, they're talkin', or they're settin' still not talkin'. It don't make no difference, no difference. — John Steinbeck

I think Steve King is absolutely wrong and I just hope that we can try to reach higher ground, because when you are spewing this kind of nonsense, things that Donald Trump says, Ben Carson says, but also [Marco] Rubio and [Ted] Cruz and even Jeb Bush have said. — Steve King

I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin' to fight all the time ... 'Course Lennie's a God damn nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin' around with a guy an' you can't get rid of him. — John Steinbeck

As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many things he did not know about himself. — John Steinbeck

The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was dark inside. He felt his way to the mattress on the floor, and he stretched out and cried in his bed, and the cars whizzing by on the highway only strengthened the walls of his loneliness. — John Steinbeck

There is no loneliness like that of one who can only give and no anger like that of those who only receive and hate the weight of debt. — John Steinbeck

Through the damp fabric of my coverall, bundled in my blanket, I feel naked. Raw. He sees more than I want, more than I can bear. It's like standing before him ... while he stares at my scars, pitiless and unmoved. — Ann Aguirre

The Nigger was a handsome, austere woman with snow-white hair and a dark and awful dignity. Her brown eyes, brooding deep in her skull, looked out on an ugly world with philosophic sorrow. She conducted her house like a cathedral dedicated to a sad but erect Priapus. If you wanted a good laugh
and a poke in the ribs, you went to Jenny's and got your money's worth; but if the sweet worldsadness close to tears crept out of your immutable loneliness, the Long Green was your place. When you came out of there you felt that something pretty stern and important had happened. It was no jump in the hay. The dark beautiful eyes of the Nigger stayed with you for days. — John Steinbeck

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable ... The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. — John Steinbeck

And always, if he had a little money, a man could get drunk. The hard edges gone, and the warmth. Then there was no loneliness, for a man could people his brain with friends, and he could find his enemies and destroy them. — John Steinbeck

The modern theory of the infinite evolved in a contiguous way out of the mathematics that preceded it. — Shaughan Lavine

Every man suddenly became related to Kino's pearl, and Kino's pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became curiously every man's enemy. The news stirred up something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food, or like loneliness when love is withheld. The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it. — John Steinbeck

All great and precious things are lonely. — John Steinbeck

He did not often think of people as individuals, but rather as antidotes for the poison of his loneliness, as escapes from the imprisoned ghosts. — John Steinbeck

Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other. — John Steinbeck