Steinbeck California Quotes & Sayings

If you had to pick the values that would be held dear to a broad number of Hispanic voters, access to opportunity would be a higher value than guarantee of security, particularly amongst the newly arrived, meaning the last 20 years. — Jeb Bush

The receding waves of foreign peon labor are leaving California agriculture to the mercies of our own people. The old methods of intimidation and starvation perfected against the foreign peons are being used against the new white migrant workers. But they will not be successful. — John Steinbeck

To rest satisfied with existing evils, as if we could do nothing, is not obedience; but neither is it obedience to imitate the actions of the apostles. — John Nelson Darby

And then the leaves break out on the trees, and the petals drop from the fruit trees and carpet the earth with pink and white. The centers of the blossoms swell and grow and color: cherries and apples, peaches and pears, figs which close the flower in the fruit. All California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy, and the limbs bend gradually under the fruit so that little crutches must be placed under them to support the weight. — John Steinbeck

Always remember ... the stronger your position in life, the more enemies you're gonna have .. while friends come and go. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It's as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California. — John Steinbeck

Whatever happens, every individual is a child of his time; so philosophy too is its own time apprehended in thoughts. It is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age, jump over Rhodes. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing. — John Steinbeck

THE SPRING IS BEAUTIFUL in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white waters in a shallow sea. Then the first tendrils of the grapes, swelling from the old gnarled vines, cascade down to cover the trunks. The full green hills are round and soft as breasts. And on the level vegetable lands are the mile-long rows of pale green lettuce and the spindly little cauliflowers, the gray-green unearthly artichoke plants. — John Steinbeck

Why don't you go on west to California? There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there? — John Steinbeck

Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. — Will Durant

How far's the nex' town? I seen forty-two cars a you fellas go by yesterday. Where you all come from? Where all of you goin'? Well, California's a big State. It ain't that big. The whole United States ain't that big. It ain't that big. It ain't big enough. There ain't room enough for you an' me, for your kind an' my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat. Whyn't you go back where you come from? — John Steinbeck

If on'y they didn' tell me I got to get off, why, I'd prob'y be in California right now a-eatin' grapes an a-pickin' an orange when I wanted. But them sons-a-bitches says I got to get off-an', Jesus Christ, a man can't, when he's tol' to! — John Steinbeck

Lies are served like a fine delicacy. But beware, the truth of it all will sour, lodge in your throat, and choke your very existence if you continue to believe them. — Jason E. Hodges

Priceless virtues are love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, goodness, long-suffering, patience faithfulness and self-control. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land, stole Sutter's land, Guerrero' s land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen. They put up houses and barns, they turned the earth and planted crops. And these things were possession, and possession was ownership.
The Mexicans were weak and fed. They could not resist, because they wanted nothing in the world as frantically as the Americans wanted land. — 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

THE SALINAS VALLEY is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay. — John Steinbeck

If she'd repeatedly fallen over while crossing soft ground, you could have sewn a crop of beans in the chin-holes she left behind. — Jonathan Stroud

The English novels are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. But one should not be too severe on them. They show a want of knowledge that must be the result of years of study. — Oscar Wilde

No, in Ireland." "And in a few years you can almost disappear; while I, who was born in Grass Valley, went to school and several years to the University of California, have no chance of mixing. — John Steinbeck

Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing. — John Steinbeck

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie. — Bob Dylan

I'm wondering whether I can explain," said Lee. "Where there is no likeness of experience it's very difficult. I understand you were not born in America."
"No, in Ireland."
"And in a few years you can almost disappear; while I, who was born in Grass Valley, went to school and several years to the University of California, have no chance of mixing."
"If you cut your queue, dressed and talked like other people?"
"No. I tried it. To the so-called whites I was still a Chinese, but an untrustworthy one; and at the same time my Chinese friends steered clear of me. I had to give it up. — John Steinbeck

There's a passage in John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" that does a pretty good job describing California's rainfall patterns:

The water came in a 30-year cycle. There would be five to six wet and wonderful years when there might be 19 to 25 inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of 12 to 16 inches of rain. And then the dry years would come ... — John Steinbeck