Steinbeck John Quotes & Sayings

Oh, strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch! And some men eased themselves like setting hens into the nest of death. History — John Steinbeck

Didn't know anyone could see it," Samuel said. "You know, Lee, I think of my life as a kind of music, not always good music but still having form and melody. And my life has not been a full orchestra for a long time now. A single note only - and that note unchanging sorrow. I'm not alone in my attitude, Lee. It seems to me that too many of us conceive of a life as ending in defeat. — John Steinbeck

Now it is over," he said sadly. "Now the great times are done. Thy friends will mourn, but nothing will come of their mourning." Danny — John Steinbeck

I've always been amused by the contention that brain work is harder than manual labor. I've never known a man to leave a desk for a muck-stick if he could avoid it. — John Steinbeck

No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us. — John Steinbeck

In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different. — John Steinbeck

Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing. — John Steinbeck

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new. — John Steinbeck

I see hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out there. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land. It's just in their head. — John Steinbeck

It's a thing to see when a boy comes home. — John Steinbeck

Adam fluttered like a bewildered bee confused by too many flowers. — John Steinbeck

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. — John Steinbeck

At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against? Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing — John Steinbeck

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. — John Steinbeck

Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living. — John Steinbeck

A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner. — John Steinbeck

Are cats strange animals or do they so resemble us that we find them curious as we do monkeys? — John Steinbeck

Nobody changes. Nobody gets hurt. — John Steinbeck

They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyay. Kino sighed with satisfaction
and that was conversation. — John Steinbeck

Now as always - humility and terror. Fear that the working of my pen cannot capture the grinding of my brain. It is so easy to understand why the ancients prayed for the help of a Muse. And the Muse came and stood beside them, and we, heaven help us, do not believe in Muses. We have nothing to fall back on but our craftsmanship and it, as modern literature attests, is inadequate. May I be honest; may I be decent; may I be unaffected by the technique of hucksters. If invocation is required, let this be my invocation - may I be strong and yet gentle, tender and yet wise, wise and yet tolerant. May I for a little while, only for a little while, see with the inflamed eyes of a God. — John Steinbeck

A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination, why they never wrote about the present. This bothered me until I realized why - that a novelist wants to know how it comes out, that he can't be omnipotent writing a book about the present, particularly this one. — John Steinbeck

I had another reason for seeking Him, for trying to espy His face, a professional one. God and literature are conflated in my mind. Why this is, I'm not sure. Perhaps because great books seem heavensent. Perhaps because I know that each nove is a puny but very valiant attempt at godlike behavior. Perhaps because there is no difference between the finest poetry and most transcendent mysticism. Perhaps because writers like Thomas Merton, who are able to enter the realm of the spirit and come away with fine, lucid prose. Perhaps because of more secular writers, like John Steinbeck, whose every passage, it seems to me, peals with religiousity and faith. It once occured to me that literature - all art really - is either talking to people about God, or talking to God about people. — Paul Quarrington

Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught. — John Steinbeck

They walked side by side along the dark beach toward Monterey, where the lights hung, necklace above necklace against the hill. The sand dunes crouched along the back of the beach like tired hounds, resting: and the waves gently practiced at striking, and hissed a little. The night was cold and aloof, and its warm life was withdrawn, so that it was full of bitter warnings to man that he is alone in the world, and alone among his fellows; that he has no comfort owing him from anywhere. — John Steinbeck

Will and George were doing well in business, and Joe was writing letters home in rhymed verse and making as smart an attack on all the accepted verities as was healthful.

Samuel wrote to Joe, sayings, "I would be disappointed if you had not become an atheist, and I read pleasantly that you have, in your age and wisdom, accepted agnosticism the way you'd take a cookie on a full stomach. But I would ask you with all my understanding heart not to try to convert your mother. Your last letter only made her think you are not well. Your mother does not believe there are many ills uncurable by good strong soup. She puts your brave attack on the structure of our civilization down to a stomach ache. It worries her. Her faith is a mountain, and you, my son, haven't even got a shovel yet. — John Steinbeck

The compass simply represents the ideal, present but unachievable, and sight-steering a compromise with perfection which allows your boat to exist at all. — John Steinbeck

Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world. — John Steinbeck

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat. — John Steinbeck

He stepped outside and looked up at the stars swimming in schools through the wind-driven clouds. — John Steinbeck

When Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, only five Americans had previously been so honored. Accepting the prize in Stockholm, he gave an impassioned speech in which he argued that "the ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement. — John Steinbeck

Don' keep ya guard up when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya. — John Steinbeck

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. — John Steinbeck

We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. — John Steinbeck

Jesus was a strange hobo who walked on water.-
Buddha was also a hobo who paid no attention to the other hobo.-
Chief Rain-In-The-Face, weirder even.- — John Steinbeck

The dark swallowed him, but his dragging footsteps could be heard a long time after he had gone, footsteps along the road; and a car came by on the highway, and its lights showed the ragged man shuffling along the road, his head hanging down and his hands in the black coat pockets. — John Steinbeck

Beans are a roof over your head. — John Steinbeck

Lee asked, "How does Mrs. Hamilton feel about the paradoxes of the Bible?" "Why, she does not feel anything because she does not admit they are there." "But - " "Hush, man. Ask her. And you'll come out of it older but not less confused." Adam — 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

When you are writing, you must treat it as the most important thing in the world, even when you know it is not. This helps you take the job seriously and do your best on everything you write. — John Steinbeck

We will have to see whether the practicing through the years has prepared me for the writing of a book. For this is the book I have always wanted and have worked and prayed to be able to write. We shall see whether I am capable. Surely I feel humble in the face of this work. And as our Roman friends would say when casting outside themselves for help, Ora pro mihi. February — John Steinbeck

They were students of the expressions of young women as they went in to confession, and they saw them as they came out and read the nature of the sin. — John Steinbeck

When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else. — John Steinbeck

The tree-frog in the high pool in the mountain cleft, had he been endowed with human reason, on finding a cigarette butt in the water might have said, "Here is an impossibility. there is no tobacco hereabouts nor any paper. Here is evidence of fire and there has been no fire. This thing cannot fly nor crawl nor blow in the wind. In fact, this thing cannot be and I will deny it, for if I admit that this thing is here the whole world of frogs is in danger, and from there it is only one step to anti-frogicentricism." And so that frog will for the rest of his life try to forget that something is, is. — John Steinbeck

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

The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-"The sky is falling," cried Henny-Penny, "and a piece of it fell on my tail. — John Steinbeck

We have to make a mark, even if it's only a scribble. — John Steinbeck

At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?"
Gitano shook his head slowly. "No, I walked down the Salinas Valley."
The afternoon thought would not let Joey go. "Did you ever go into the big mountains back there?"
The old dark eyes grew fixed, and their light turned inward on the years that were living in Gitano's head. — John Steinbeck

Look now
in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "use it well, use it wisely." We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. And we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training. — John Steinbeck

My father, John Steinbeck, was a man who held human history in great reverence, and in particular the biographies of those people who had risked their lives, their fortunes, and their worldly honor to defend the rights and prerogatives of those who were powerless to defend themselves. — Thomas Steinbeck

It was quite normal in that day for a man to use up three or four wives in a normal lifetime. — John Steinbeck

Names are a great mystery. I've never known whether the name is molded by the child or the child changed to fit the name. But you can be sure of this- whenever a human has a nickname it is a proof that the name given him was wrong. — John Steinbeck

Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously. — John Steinbeck

But Doc had one mental habit he could not get over. When anyone asked a question, Doc thought he wanted to know the answer. — John Steinbeck

Well, tell me. You see, there's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be. What — John Steinbeck

His name was Anderson and he had little gift for communication. Like most technicians, he had a
terror and a contempt for speculation. The inductive leap was not for him. He dug a step and pulled himself up one single step, the way a man climbs the last shoulder of a mountain. He had great contempt, born of fear, for the Hamiltons, for they all half believed they had wings - and they got some bad falls that way.
Anderson never fell, never slipped back, never flew. His steps moved slowly, slowly upward, and in the end, it is said, he found what he wanted - color film. He married Una, perhaps, because she had little humor, and this reassured him. Una wrote bleak letters without joy but also without self-pity. She was well and she hoped her family was well. — John Steinbeck

You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast. — John Steinbeck

I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining
small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age. — John Steinbeck

A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. — John Steinbeck

Sir, this is a unique dog. He does not live by tooth or fang. He respects the right of cats to be cats although he doesn't admire them. He turns his steps rather than disturb an earnest caterpillar. His greatest fear is that someone will point out a rabbit and suggest that he chase it. This is a dog of peace and tranquility. — John Steinbeck

In marching, in mobs, in football games, and in war, outlines become vague; real things become unreal and a fog creeps over the mind. Tension and excitement, weariness, movement
all merge in one great gray dream, so that when it is over, it is hard to remember how it was when you killed men or ordered them to be killed. Then other people who were not there tell you what it was like and you say vaguely, yes, I guess that's how it was. — John Steinbeck

I could be held back just by being needed. Please try not to need me. That's the worst bait of all to a lonely man. — John Steinbeck

In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this. — John Steinbeck

Well, I remember this girl. I am not whole without her. I am not alive without her. When she was with me I was more alive than I have ever been, and not only when she was pleasant either. Even when we were fighting I was whole. — John Steinbeck

There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension. — John Steinbeck

One day Samuel strained his back lifting a bale of hay, and it hurt his feelings more than his back, for he could not imagine a life in which Sam Hamilton was not privileged to lift a bale of hay. He felt insulted by his back, almost as he would have been if one of his children had been dishonest — John Steinbeck

Her great-great-great-great-great grandmother had been burned as a witch. — John Steinbeck

We could live offa the fatta the lan'. — John Steinbeck

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man. — John Steinbeck

In 50 years, did you ever have a vacation, you little, silly, half-pint, smidgin of a wife? — John Steinbeck

Hazel grew up - did four years in grammar school, four years in reform school, and didn't learn a thing in either place. Reform schools are supposed to teach viciousness and criminality but Hazel didn't pay enough attention. — John Steinbeck

It is a nice thing to be working and believing in my work again. I hope I can keep the drive. I only feel whole and well when it is this way. — 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

His reaction to the idea was not simple. He felt a great warmth that they should want to give him a party and at the same time he quaked inwardly remembering the last one they had given.
Now everything fell into place-Mack's question and the silences when he was about. He thought of it a lot that night sitting beside his desk. He glanced about considering what things would have to be locked up. He knew the party was going to cost him plenty. — John Steinbeck

Life passes by in a wink so try to never miss a moment of it — John Steinbeck

For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word. — John Steinbeck

Ad astra per alia porci (to the stars on the wings of a pig) — John Steinbeck

There wasn't any limit, no boundary at all, to the future. And it would be so a man wouldn't have room to store his happiness. — John Steinbeck

And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. — John Steinbeck

Now Kino lay in the cave entrance, his chin braced on his crossed arms, and he watched the blue shadow of the mountain move out across the brushy desert below until it reached the Gulf, and the long twilight of the shadow was over the land. — John Steinbeck

Man hates something in himself. He has been able to defeat every natural obstacle but himself he cannot win over unless he kills every individual. And this self-hate which goes so closely in hand with self-love is what I wrote about. - in a letter to George Albee — 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

Luck, you see, brings bitter friends. — John Steinbeck

A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. Remember this thing. I have known boys forty years old because there was no need for a man: — John Steinbeck

In town in a whorehouse. That's where your money's goin'. Jesus, I seen it happen too many times. I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand. — John Steinbeck

From the Grapes of Wrath and a woman that would not be moved: 'On'y way you gonna get me to go is whup me.' She moved the jack handle gently again. 'An' I'll shame you, Pa. I won't take no whuppin', cryin' an' a-beggin'. I'll light into you. An' you ain't so sure you can whup me anyways. An' if ya do get me, I swear to God I'll wait till you got your back turned, or you're settin' down, an' I'll knock you belly-up with a bucket. I swear to Holy Jesus' sake I will. — John Steinbeck

Who wants to be good if he has to be hungry too? — John Steinbeck

In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence, but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself. — John Steinbeck

You must not expect to find that people understand what they do. — John Steinbeck

The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental. — John Steinbeck

A man is a very important thing-maybe more important than a star. — John Steinbeck

We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not. — John Steinbeck

A farmer cannot think too much evil of a good farmer. — John Steinbeck

I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar - if he is financially fortunate. — John Steinbeck

I intended to make it sound guileless and rather sweet but you will see in it the little blades of social criticism without which no book is worth a fart in hell. — John Steinbeck

green with little golden spots. — John Steinbeck

Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don't need much. — John Steinbeck

Show me the man who isn't interested in discussing himself. — John Steinbeck

Well, a man's mind can't stay in time the way his body does. — John Steinbeck

I dislike helplessness in other people and in myself, and this is by far my greatest fear of illness. — John Steinbeck

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age.In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ships's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, once a bum always a bum. I fear this disease incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself ... A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we not take a trip; a trip takes us. — John Steinbeck