Quotes from John Steinbeck

A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?

No - the stars are close and dear and I have joined the brotherhood of the worlds. And everything's holy - everything, even me.

I always found in myself a dread of west and love of east. Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that morning came over the peaks of the Gabilans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Santa Lucias. It may be that the birth and death of the day had some part in my feeling about the two ranges of mountains.

Dora was having trouble with her income tax, for she was entangled in that curious enigma which said the business was illegal and then taxed her for it.

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields.

Curley's wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly. The curls, tiny little sausages, were spread on the hay behind her head and her lips were parted

There's no thing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of a postage stamp.

And her eyes were on the highway, where life whizzed by.

I climb fences when i got fences to climb.

Dessie's friends were good and loyal but they were human, and humans love to feel good and they hate to feel bad.

In town in a whorehouse. That's where your money's goin'. Jesus, I seen it happen too many times. I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand.

It was a matter of some sorrow to Fauna that she didn't entirely believe in astrology, but she had found that nearly everyone wants to believe that the stars take notice of us.

You must name a thing before you can note it on your hand drawn map.

How do I know?" said Cal. "Am I supposed to look after him?

It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning. Pablo

Maybe, kneeling down to atoms, they're becoming atom-sized in their souls. Maybe a specialist is only a coward, afraid to look out of his little cage. And think what any specialist misses--the whole world over his fence.

to the race in general, alcohol as been an anodyne, a warmer of the soul, a strengthener of muscle and spirit. It has given courage to cowards and has made very ugly people attractive. There is a story told of a Swedish tramp, sitting in a ditch on Midsummer Night. He was ragged and dirty and drunk, and he said to himself softly and in wonder, I am rich and happy and perhaps a little beautiful.

Who wants to be good if he has to be hungry too?

Bring new eyes to a world even new lenses and presto, new world.

He has come to be the great man he thought he wanted to be. If this is true, then he is not a man. He is still a little boy and wants the moon.

At last he said, Did you come out of the big mountains? Gitano shook his head slowly. No, I walked down the Salinas Valley. The afternoon thought would not let Joey go. Did you ever go into the big mountains back there? The old dark eyes grew fixed, and their light turned inward on the years that were living in Gitano's head.

And always, if he had a little money, a man could get drunk. The hard edges gone, and the warmth. Then there was no loneliness, for a man could people his brain with friends, and he could find his enemies and destroy them. Sitting in a ditch, the earth grew soft under him. Failures dulled and the future was no threat. And hunger did not skulk about, but the world was soft and easy, and a man could reach the place he started for.

Most children abhor difference. They want to look, talk, dress, and act exactly like all of the others. If the style of dress is an absurdity, it is pain and sorrow to a child not to wear that absurdity. If necklaces of pork chops were accepted, it would be a sad child who could not wear pork chops. And this slavishness to the group normally extends into every game, every practice, social or otherwise. It is a protective coloration children utilize for their safety.

It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.