John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 12

Quotes about:

• I have taken as much as six years to prepare a book for writing. There is such a delirium of effort in the production of a book; it's like childbirth. And, like childbirth, one forgets the pains immediately so that when you come to write another one you dare to take it up again. Some precious anesthesia sees you through.

  John Steinbeck

  Pain, Book, Taken

  John Steinbeck, Thomas Fensch (1988). “Conversations with John Steinbeck”, p.88, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  15 Copy quote

• And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.

  John Steinbeck

  Keys, San Francisco, Golden

  "America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction".

  9 Copy quote

• The camera is one of the most frightening of modern weapons, particularly to people who have been in warfare, who have been bombed and shelled for at the back of a bombing run is invariably a photograph. In the back of ruined towns, and cities, and factories, there is aerial mapping, or spy mapping, usually with a camera. Therefore the camera is a feared instrument, and a man with a camera is suspected and watched wherever he goes... In the minds of most people today the camera is the forerunner of destruction, and it is suspected, and rightly so.

  John Steinbeck

  Running, Men, Cities

  6 Copy quote

• Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there.

  John Steinbeck

  Guy, Cop

  "Fictional character: Tom Joad". "The Grapes of Wrath ", www.imdb.com. 1940.

  7 Copy quote

• I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one.

  John Steinbeck

  Prayer, Magic, Suffering

  John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.12, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• Everyone I have ever known very well has been concerned that I would eventually starve. Probably I shall. It isn't important enough to me to be an obsession.

  John Steinbeck

  Important, Obsession, Hunger

  John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.79, Penguin UK

  8 Copy quote

• I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction.

  John Steinbeck

  Self, Bored, Sloth

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.318, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see?

  John Steinbeck

  Reality, Men, Discovery

  John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.46, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• She wasn't happy, but then she wasn't unhappy. She wasn't anything. But I don't believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing. This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.

  John Steinbeck

  Dream, Memories, Believe

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.29, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

  John Steinbeck

  Travel, Struggle, Journey

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.8, Penguin

  15 Copy quote

• These too are of a burning color--not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.

  John Steinbeck

  Orange, Color, Gold

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.10, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Two, Challenges

  John Steinbeck (2009). “The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.429, Penguin

  40 Copy quote

• Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America.

  John Steinbeck

  Texas, America, Stronger

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.125, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

  John Steinbeck

  Believe, Men, Dedication

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.146, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• We could live offa the fatta the lan'.

  John Steinbeck

  Mice

  John Steinbeck (2009). “The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.236, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• It seems to me Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda.

  John Steinbeck

  Color, Land, Mountain

  John Steinbeck (2007). “Travels with Charley and Later Novels, 1947-1962”

  7 Copy quote

• Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass. Change may be announced by a small ache, so that you think you're catching cold. Or you may feel a faint disgust for something you loved yesterday. It may even take the form of a hunger that peanuts won't satisfy. Isn't overeating said to be one of the strongest symptoms of discontent. And isn't discontent the lever of change?

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Thinking, Yesterday

  John Steinbeck (2007). “Travels with Charley and Later Novels, 1947-1962”

  9 Copy quote

• Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

  John Steinbeck

  Work, Men, Wrath

  Grapes of Wrath (1939) ch. 14

  19 Copy quote

• Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.

  John Steinbeck

  Fall, Sparrows

  John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.158, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Country, Travel, New York

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.54, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• I think of my life as a kind of music, not always good music but still having form and melody.

  John Steinbeck

  Life, Thinking, Kind

  John Steinbeck (1952). “East of Eden, And, The Wayward Bus”

  6 Copy quote

• The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous...but not quite.

  John Steinbeck

  Soul, World, Gains

  John Steinbeck (1963). “The short novels of John Steinbeck: Tortilla Flat, The red pony, Of mice and men, The moon is down, Cannery Row, The pearl”

  4 Copy quote

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

  John Steinbeck

  Laughter, Women, Habit

  John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.58, Hamilton Books

  7 Copy quote

• There is comfort in routine.

  John Steinbeck

  Comfort, Routine

  John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.144, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Every man in a bank hates what the bank does and yet the bank does it.

  John Steinbeck

  Hate, Men, Doe

  John Steinbeck (2006). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.81, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

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