Quotes from John Steinbeck

Captain Loft believed that all women fall in love with a uniform and he did not see how it could be otherwise.

The great artists of finance like Morgan and Rockefeller weren't deflected. They wanted and got money, just simple money. What they did with it afterward is another matter. I've always felt they got scared of the ghost they raised and tried to buy it off.

It is worth while to be kind and generous," he said. "Not only do such actions pile up a house of joy in Heaven; but there is, too, a quick reward here on earth. One feels a golden warmth glowing like a hot enchilada in one's stomach.

Güzellik neden ille de eskiye ait olsun ki?

But some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread their hatred around like butter on hot bread.

The pictures were designed to soothe without arousing interest – engravings of cows in ponds, deer in streams, dogs in lakes. Wet animals seem to serve some human need.

The preacher rose high on his elbow. Law changes, he said, but 'got to's' go on. You got the right to do what you got to do.

They got to live before they can afford to die.

But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist—or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.

Pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the gods or both.

They's a time of change, an' when that comes, dyin' is a piece of all dyin', and bearin' is a piece of all bearin', an' bearin' an' dyin' is two pieces of the same thing. An' then things ain't so lonely anymore. An' then a hurt don't hurt so bad.

When the radio was on, music has stimulated memory of times and places, complete with characters and stage sets, memories so exact that every word of dialogue is recreated. And I have projected future scenes, just as complete and convincing--scenes that will never take place. I've written short stories in my mind, chuckling at my own humor, saddened or stimulated by structure or content.

St. Paul has just closed his book. His finger marks the last page read and on his face are the wonder and will to understand after the book is closed. Maybe understanding is possible only after.

There is no dignity in death in battle. Mostly that is a splashing about of human meat and fluid, and the result is filthy, but there is a great and almost sweet dignity in the sorrow, the helpless, the hopeless sorrow, that comes down over a family with the telegram. Nothing to say, nothing to do, and only one hope—I hope he didn't suffer—and what a forlorn and last-choice hope that is.

He was very rich; he bought eggs to throw at a Chinaman. And one of those eggs missed the Chinaman and hit a policeman. So, Danny was in jail.

Sexuality with all its attendant yearnings and pains, jealousies and taboos, is the most disturbing impulse humans have.

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layer of frailty men want to be good and want be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love.

You what. Curley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He's alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain't you? Always scrappy?

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. And to prod all these there's time, the bastard Time.

No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us. What a great burden of guilt men have!' Samuel said to Adam, 'And you have tried to take it all.' Lee said, 'So do I, so does everyone. We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.

I don't know. It's like getting up in the morning. I don't want to get up but I don't want to stay in bed either.

Can a man think out his life, or must he just tag along?

Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches, by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men, and he would have meant the same thing. Quoted by Richard Wagamese in Ragged Company

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure.