John Steinbeck Quotes

510 Sourced Quotes

And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

John Steinbeck
Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.

John Steinbeck
Ever'body's askin' that. "What we comin' to?" Seems to me we don't never come to nothin'. Always on the way.

John Steinbeck
A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn't say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn't like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn't shave.

John Steinbeck
When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to catch whole for they will break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book-to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.

John Steinbeck
In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

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

John Steinbeck
You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.

John Steinbeck
It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.

John Steinbeck
If you are using dialogue — say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

John Steinbeck
The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path or the breath caught at sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.

John Steinbeck
A writer lives in awe of words for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.

John Steinbeck
I guess this is why I hate governments. It is always the rule, the fine print, carried out by the fine print men. There's nothing to fight, no wall to hammer with frustrated fists.

John Steinbeck
Fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live – for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken... fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

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
With all our horrors and our faults, somewhere in us there is a shining.

John Steinbeck
But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—'Thou mayest'— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.

John Steinbeck
Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is — and a woman too, I guess.

John Steinbeck
A day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cates, dogs, butterflies and people.

John Steinbeck
A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

John Steinbeck
Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared.[...]It's slow. It rots out your guts.

John Steinbeck
Well, God knows he don't need any brains to buck barley bags. But don't you try to put nothing over, Milton. I got my eye on you.

John Steinbeck
You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff.

John Steinbeck
The candle aimed its spark of light at heaven, like an artist who consumes himself to become divine.

John Steinbeck
I have never even wondered about the comparative standing of writers. I don't understand that. Writing to me is a deeply personal, even a secret function and when the product is turned loose it is cut off from me and I have no sense of its being mine. Consequently criticism doesn't mean anything to me. As a disciplinary matter, it is too late.

John Steinbeck
Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.

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

John Steinbeck
It's all fine to say, Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget —and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.

John Steinbeck
I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times.

John Steinbeck
I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer — and what trees and seasons smelled like — how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.

John Steinbeck