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Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.
John Steinbeck
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You must not expect to find that people understand what they do.
John Steinbeck
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For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.
John Steinbeck
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I have wondered why is it that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death that others.
John Steinbeck
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They's movement now. People moving. We know why, an' we know how. Movin' 'cause they got to. That's why folks always move. Movin' 'cause they want somepin better'n what they got. An' that's the on'y way they'll ever git it.
John Steinbeck
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'I know,' said Winter, 'but they don't know.' And he went on with a thought he had been having. 'A time-minded people,' he said, 'and the time is nearly up. They think that just because they have only one leader and one head, we are all like that. They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.'
John Steinbeck
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I know now why confusion in government is not only tolerated but encouraged. I have learned. A confused people can make no clear demands.
John Steinbeck
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Mordeen said: "I used to wonder why this love seemed sweeter than I had ever known, better than many people ever know. And then one day the reason came to me. There are very few great Anythings in the world. In work and art and emotion—the great is very rare. And I have one of the great and beautiful. Now say your yah, yah, Victor, like a child unanswerably answering Wisdom. You will have to do that, I think."
John Steinbeck
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People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments...
John Steinbeck
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The people in flight from the terror behind-strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.
John Steinbeck
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Like most modern people, I don't believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it.
John Steinbeck
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I dislike helplessness in other people and in myself, and this is by far my greatest fear of illness.
John Steinbeck
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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
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I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
John Steinbeck
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People like you to be something, preferably what they are.
John Steinbeck
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The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John Steinbeck
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People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all.
John Steinbeck
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Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor.
John Steinbeck
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They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.
John Steinbeck
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And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.
John Steinbeck
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And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
John Steinbeck
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A book is somehow sacred. A dictator can kill and maim people, can sink to any kind of tyranny and only be hated, but when books are burned the ultimate in tyranny has happened. This we cannot forgive.
John Steinbeck
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Some days are born ugly. From the very first light they are no damn good what ever the weather, and everbody knows it. No one knows what causes this, but on such a day people resist getting out of bed and set their heels against the day. When they are finally forced out by hunger or job they find that the day is just as lousy as they knew it would be.
John Steinbeck
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He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.
John Steinbeck
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A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.
John Steinbeck
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Quote of the day
Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Robert F. Kennedy
John Steinbeck
Creative Commons
Born:
February 27, 1902
Died:
December 20, 1968
(aged 66)
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