John Steinbeck Quotes
February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968
 The Pearl (1992, pg. 3) 
|
More John Steinbeck Quotes
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 20 (Sweet Thursday (1954))
The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
John Steinbeck— “In Awe of Words,” The Exonian, 75th anniversary edition, Exeter University (1930)
It is a nice thing to be working and believing in my work again. I hope I can keep the drive. I only feel whole and well when it is this way.
John Steinbeck— Letter to Elizabeth Otis, once he had begun The Grapes of Wrath (1 June 1938)
For the first time I am working on a book that is not limited and that will take every bit of experience and thought and feeling that I have.
John Steinbeck— Journal entry (11 June 1938), published in Working Days : The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938-1941 (1990) edited by Robert DeMott
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John Steinbeck— Interview with Robert van Gelder (April 1947), as quoted in John Steinbeck : A Biography (1994) by Jay Parini
All hell has broken loose. I admit our Russian is limited, but we can say hello, come in, you are beautiful, oh no you don't. … So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda. Something has slipped badly.
John Steinbeck— On difficulties while traveling in the USSR (20 August 1947), in Steinbeck : A Life in Letters (1976)
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
John Steinbeck— Quote magazine (18 June 1961)
The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business.
John Steinbeck— The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), but a statement he is first quoted as having made in Newsweek (24 December 1962)
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
John Steinbeck— New York Times (2 June 1969)
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.
John Steinbeck— New York Times (2 June 1969)
Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.
John Steinbeck— When asked his reaction to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address
— Quoted by Atlantic magazine (November 1969)
We could live offa the fatta the lan’.
John Steinbeck— Lennie, in Ch. 3, p. 57
Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody — to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 4, p. 72
I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 4, p. 75
You ain't worth a greased lack pin to ram you into hell.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 6, p. 101
I am a dog.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 2 p. 18 (Of Mice and Men (1937))
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. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 1 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find himself a good and sufficient reason for going.
John Steinbeck— Travels With Charley: In Search of America, part 1 (1962)
And now, our submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 1 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I know beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 1 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 2 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 3 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
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— Pt. 3 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
Life could not change the sun or water the desert, so it changed itself.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 3 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 4 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
A question is a trap, and an answer your foot in it.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 4 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
John Steinbeck— John Steinbeck, East of Eden, p. 131 (1952)
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
John Steinbeck— John Steinbeck, East of Eden, p. 131 (1952)
A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.
John Steinbeck
