John Steinbeck Quotes

Relationship Time to Aloneness." Having a companion fixes you in time and that of the present, but w...

You keep out of my bed,” said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat ...

What branch do you want to go in?” “I don’ give a god-damn,” said Pilon jauntily. “I guess we need m...

As the wine went down in the bottles, patriotism arose in the three men. And when the wine was gone ...

At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?"Gitano shook his head slowly. "No, I walked...

It would be a dreadful thing to tell anyone about it, for it would destroy some fragile structure of...

We do know that we are cheated from birth to the overcharge on our coffins.

It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.

Lanser had been in Belgium and France twenty years before and he tried not to think what he knew—tha...

The Mayor spoke proudly. 'Yes, they will light it. I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir...

You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn’t o...

It is a rule in paleontology that ornamentation and complication precede extinction. And our mutatio...

Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane," he [Ed Ricketts] said. "And children know it to...

It is very easy to grow tired at collecting; the period of a low tide is about all men can endure. A...

There is a curious idea among unscientific men that in scientific writing there is a common plateau ...

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.

Once Ed said to me, "For a very long time I didn't like myself." It was not said in self-pity but si...

Consider the blundering anarchic system of the United States the stupidity of some of its lawmakers,...

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry ...

They got to live before they can afford to die.

Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' I thought an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody na...

Well, what you ding this kind of work for--against your own people?""Three dollars a day. I got damn...

It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.

We still go where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right.' - Tom Joad (Jr.)

Jus' live the day. Don' worry yaself.

Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make ...

Two are better than one,because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one w...

I ain't never done nothin' that wasn't part sin.

Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin' man can ta...

Old Tom giggled, "Fooled ya, huh, Ma? We aimed to fool ya, and we done it. Jus' stood there like a h...

This you may say of man - when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow da...

Ain't you thinkin' what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like...

They had long ago found out that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.

It gives a fella relief to tell, but it jus' spreads out his sin.

Her face looked for the answer that is always concealed in language.

Look out for luck. You can't trus' luck.

Beside them, little pot-bellied men in light suits and panama hats; clean, pink men with puzzled, wo...

Fella says today, 'Depression is over. I seen a jackrabbit, an' they wasn't nobody after him.' An' a...

We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't a man. The bank isn't like a man.Yes, but...

Well, we all got to make a livin'.""Yeah," Tom said. "On'y I wisht they was some way to make her 'th...

Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, a...

And now they were weary and frightened because they had gone against a system they did not understan...

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - ...

I climb fences when i got fences to climb.

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was bril...

Why, Tom - us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that...

And the great owners, who had become through the might of their holdings both more and less than men

I wanta buy stuff. Stuff I don't need... Stuff settin' out there, you jus' feel like buyin' it wheth...

And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to histo...

Time is more complex near the sea than in any other place, for in addition to the circling of the su...

I know, Ma. I'm a-tryin'. But them deputies- Did you ever see a deputy that didn't have a fat ass? A...

But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a ...

The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the si...

Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.

It ain't kin we? It's will we?

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen a...

An' I got to thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin', it was deeper down than thinkin'.

Casy said solemnly, "This here ol' man jus' lived a life an' just died out of it. I don't know wheth...

Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and ...

Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gra...

Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.

Got a lot of sinful idears--but they seem kinda sensible.

He stopped, feeling lonely in his long speech.

The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads.

Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americ...

Hm-m," he said. "Lookie, Ma. I been all day an' all night hidin' alone. Guess whoI been thinkin' abo...

For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks u...

...and the break would never come as long as fear can turn to wrath.

The last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the si...

The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was...

You got a God. Don't make no difference if you don' know what he looks like.

Casy said, "Ol' Tom's house can't be more'n a mile from here. Ain't she over that third rise?"Sure,"...

Minds me of a story they tell about Willy Feeley when he was a young fella. Willy was bashful, awful...

I wonder Pa went so easy. I wonder Grampa didn' kill nobody. Nobody never tol' Grampa where to put h...

I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'l...

This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is prepar...

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made s...

No one doubts your courage, but you are a headstrong knight and when you choose a way you cannot cha...

This is the greatest mystery of the human mind--the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irr...

I live alone," he said simply. "I live in the open. I hear the waves at night and see the black patt...

There are several ways to wear a hat or a cap. A man may express himself in the pitch or tilt of a h...

A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swa...

Curley's wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the dis...

Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody ne...

I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that'swhy.

This is just a nigger talkin', an' a busted-back nigger. So it don't mean nothing, see? You couldn't...

His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but ...

Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to.

Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hi...

Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. "I had enough," he said coldly. "You got no rights comi...

She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place ...

Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.

As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sou...

Lennie rolled off the bunk and stood up, and the two of them started for the door. Just as they reac...

I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They...

You fellas don' know what you're doin. You're helpin to starve kids...You don' know what you're a' d...

But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most impor...

Look now—in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be count...

For how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that...

It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me," said Lee, "that time gives much of anything but ye...

A man without words is a man without thought.