Quotes from John Steinbeck

Tom Joad is Steinbeck's only character to move from violently selfish immaturity to compassionate maturity without losing a naive faith or his life before the action ends.

When her mother died, she felt little besides shame. Her mother had wanted so much to be loved, and she hadn't known how to draw love. Her importunities had bothered the children and driven them away.

They might call him a watchman but he was a pimp—a dirty pimp, the lowest thing in the world. And then he thought how he had a right to live and be happy just like anyone else, by God he had.

Baz? insanlar, iyileÅŸmenin hastal?klar?n?n ÅŸan?na hakaret olduÄŸunu düÅŸünür. Ama zaman merhemi ÅŸana filan bakmaz. Beklerse herkes iyileÅŸir.

Maybe that's what ghosts are

But this tractor does two things—it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank.

Yes, it meant something." Then he said, "Mr. Trask, do you think the thoughts of people suddenly become important at a given age? Do you have sharper feelings or clearer thoughts now than when you were ten? Do you see as well, hear as well, taste as vitally?" "Maybe you're right," said Adam. "It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me," said Lee, "that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to a man.

Joseph was elderly and lean and serious, and his life was so complicated that only a profound man would know him to be simple.

The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

You should a got a wife," said Joad. "Preacher an' his wife stayed at our place one time. Jehovites they was. Slep' upstairs. Held meetin's in our barnyard. Us kids would listen. That preacher's missus took a god-awful poundin' after ever' night meetin'.

He remembered hearing a doctor say, I love to deliver a baby, because if I do my work well, there's joy at the end of it. The sheriff had thought often of that remark. It seemed to him that if he did his work well there was sorrow at the end of it for somebody. The fact that it was necessary was losing its weight with him. He would be retiring soon whether he wanted to or not.

Through his portrayal of Jim Nolan's self-discovery of his leadership capabilities in In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck is making a case for the recognition of his own talent.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

I says, 'Maybe it ain't a sin. Maybe it's just the way folks is. Maybe we been whippin' the hell out of ourselves for nothin'.

In 1963 Steinbeck told Caskie Stinnett: I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it. I take a hell of a long time to get started. The actual writing is the last process. Though Steinbeck actually wrote the novel in ninety-three sittings, it was his way of saying that The Grapes of Wrath was an intuited whole that embodied the form of his devotion. p xxxviii

Purtiest goddamn country you ever seen, but they ain't nice to you, them folks. They're so scairt an' worried they ain't even nice to each other.

It's not so bad when you get used to it," said Doc. "I've been drinking it for seventeen years.

He was an arithmetician rather than a mathematician. None of the humor, the music, or the mysticism of higher mathematics ever entered his head. Men might vary in height or weight or color, just as 6 is different from 8, but there was little other difference.

Ruhlar?nda yumru yumru gazap üzümleri oluÅŸuyor,büyüyor,a??rla??yor,baÄŸbozumuna haz?rlan?yor

Goddam it, whenever a person wants reassurance he tells a friend to think what he wants to be true. It's like asking a waiter what's good tonight.

A guy needs somebody—to be near him." He whined, "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.

And the greatest foolishness of all lies in the fact that to do it at all, 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. If he does not, the work is not worth even what it otherwise might have been.

Kutsal ruhun ve Ä°sa'n?n yolunu düÅŸündüm. Ne diye boyuna Allah'tan ya da Ä°sa'dan dem vurup duruyoruz diye düÅŸündüm. Belki, sevdiÄŸim ÅŸey bütün erkekler ve kad?nlard?r, belki kutsal ruh budur. Ä°nsanlar?n ruhudur. Bütün insanlard?r. Belki insanlar?n tek bir ruhu var da herkes teker teker bu ruhun parças?.

Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.