Quotes by
John Steinbeck |
1902-1968 , American writer, Nobel 1962
One of the most famous and most widely read American writers of the 20th century. He is widely known for the epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon.
He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
| 56 quotes | 2,631 visits |
Quotations
| • | Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. 16 |
| • | I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen. 7 |
| • | All great and precious things are lonely. |
| • | There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. |
| • | And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good. |
| • | It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. |
| • | All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal. |
| • | What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. |
| • | Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. |
| • | I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found. |
| • | Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love. |
| • | To be alive at all is to have scars. |
| • | Anything that just costs money is cheap. |
| • | No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. |
| • | People like you to be something, preferably what they are. |
| • | Sometimes a man wants to be stupid, if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids. |
| • | Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power. |
| • | It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. |
| • | If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need, go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones. |
| • | I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it. |
| • | When a man says he does not want to speak of something, he usually means he can think of nothing else. |
| • | A man without words is a man without thought. |
| • | I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger. |
| • | I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction. |
| • | The quality of owning freezes you forever in “I,” and cuts you off forever from the “we.” |
| • | Don’t make everyone know about your sadness. |
| • | A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. |
| • | Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create – this is man. |
| • | Man has a choice and it’s a choice that makes him a man. |
| • | I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless. |
| • | Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world. |
| • | I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts. |
| • | It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him. |
| • | It is the hour of pearl – the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself. |
| • | Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning. |
| • | The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. |
| • | I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments. |
| • | It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with the gods. |
| • | You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect. |
| • | No one wants advice – only corroboration. |
| • | If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck. |
| • | If you want to keep a friend, never test him. |
| • | Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn’t do anything about it. |
| • | Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. |
| • | Nearly everybody has his box of secret pain, shared with no one. |
| • | Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough. |
| • | An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams. |
| • | I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible. |
| • | Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals. |
| • | In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable. |
| • | The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. |
| • | Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard. |
| • | We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. |
| • | The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. |
| • | Time is the only critic without ambition. |
Funny Quotes
| • | The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business. |
