John Steinbeck Quotes
February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968
 The Pearl (1992, pg. 3) 
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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
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
John Steinbeck— The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957), p. 102
If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.
John Steinbeck— Letter to Adlai Stevenson (5 November 1959), quoted in The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer : A Biography (1984), by Jackson J. Benson, p. 876
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)
His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 2, p. 36
Guy don't need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus' works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain't hardly ever a nice fella.
John Steinbeck— Ch. 3, p. 41
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
Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 1 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 1 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
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))
The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It’s as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 3 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
He wasn't involved with a race that could build a thing it had to escape from.
John Steinbeck— Pt. 3 (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))
It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.
John Steinbeck— On Intent
I have owed you this letter for a very long time — but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.
John Steinbeck— Letter to his literary agent, found on his desk after his death in 1968
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)
In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different.
John Steinbeck— The Winter of Out Discontent
