Quotes from John Steinbeck

The passion to produce is very great. One man, who has not yet been assigned his little garden plot, is hopefully watering a jimson weed simply to have something of his own growing.

The ancients placed love and war in the hands of closely related gods.

Nearly everyone has had a box of secret pain, shared with no one.

When the first innocence goes, you can't stop—unless you're a hypocrite or a fool.

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.

Lanser had been in Belgium and France twenty years before and he tried not to think what he knew—that war is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed except for new weariness and new hatreds.

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents and no one's fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishments for concealed sins.

girl rabbits in an' tells the law she been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in a irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day.

All this is a preface to the fear and uncertainties which clamber over a man so that in his silly work he thinks he must be crazy because he is so alone.

Things that happen are of no importance. But from everything that happens, there is a lesson to be learned.

When shoes and clothes and food, when hope is gone we'll all have the rifle.

I love people so much I'm fit to bust, sometimes.

They refused seconds and I insisted. And the division of thirds was put on the basis that there wasn't enough to save. And with the few divided drops of that third there came into Rocinante a triumphant human magic that can bless a house, or a truck for that matter-- nine people gathered in complete silence and the nine parts making a whole as surely as my arms and legs are a part of me, separate and inseparable.

Ä°nsan bazen o kadar kendi d???nda davran?r ki, size '' Bunu yapm?? olamaz. Karakterine ayk?r?, dedirtir. Belki de deÄŸildir. Yaln?zca baÅŸka bir aç? söz konusu olabilir veya yukar?dan aÅŸa??dan gelen bask?lar kiÅŸinin davran?? ÅŸeklini deÄŸiÅŸtirebilir.

Oh, strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch! And some men eased themselves like setting hens into the nest of death.

A reputation for money is almost as negotiable as money itself.

The party had all the best qualities of a riot and a night on the barricades.

The news came early to the beggars in front of the church, and it made them giggle a little with pleasure, for they knew that there is no Almsgiver in the world like a poor man who is suddenly lucky.

Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also––either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths.

Aron's training in worldliness was gained from a young man of no experience, which gave him the ability for generalization only the inexperienced can have.

I'm glad there's love here. That's all.

No one doubts your courage, but you are a headstrong knight and when you choose a way you cannot change your course even if it lead to your destruction. That is your fault and your destiny.

Now what the hell do you suppose is eatin' them two guys?

He leaned his flail against the steps. 'That's to drive the mice out,' he said. 'I'll bet they're fat. I'll bet they don't know what's going to happen to them today.' 'No, nor you either,' Billy remarked philosophically, 'nor me, nor anyone.