Quotes from John Steinbeck

What are you looking for, little man? Is it yourself you're trying to identify?Are you looking at little things to avoid big things?

And all their love was thinned with money.

I know this … a man got to do what he got to do.

I'll be ever'where–wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there..An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses the build–why I'll be there.

He hated old women. They frightened him. There was a smell about them that gave him the willies. They were fierce and they had no price. They never gave a damn about making a scene. They got what they wanted. Louie's grandmother had been a tyrant. She had got whatever she wanted by being fierce.

Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, the processes of coordination and disintegration follow each other with great regularity, and the index of the coordination is the measure of the disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline. And there is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. There is no hater like one who has greatly loved.

Well, suppose there's a slight doubt that the boy should be in the army and we send him and he gets killed." "I see. Is it responsibility or blame that bothers you?" "I don't want blame." "Sometimes responsibility is worse. It doesn't carry any pleasant egotism.

Look out for luck. You can't trus' luck.

That is a mystery that has disturbed rulers all over the world—how the people know. It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control. It is a great mystery." The

It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be missed without being gone; to be loved without satiety. How beautiful one is and how desirable; for in a few moments one will have ceased to exist.

Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person – a real person you know, or an imagined person – and write to that one.

It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow.

She felt hurt that he had agreed so easily. And she laughed sourly at herself that she could ask a thing and be hurt when she got it.

I guess the difference is that dampness comes down but dankness rises up out of rot and fermentation.

The gilded chairs covered with their worn tapestry were set about stiffly like too many servants with nothing to do.

When the fair gold morning of April stirred Mary Hawley awake, she turned over to her husband and saw him, little fingers pulling a frog mouth at her.

Don't roust your faith bird-high an' you won't do no crawlin' with the worms.

Tom , the third son, was most like his father. He was born in fury and he lived in lightning.Tom came headlong into life. He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them..He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day.

In the books of some memories it was the best time that ever sloshed over the world - the old time, the gay time, sweet and simple, as though time were young and fearless. Old men who didn't know whether they were going to stagger over the boundary of the century looked forward to it with distaste. For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too.

Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.

The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right—the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.

Jesus Christ, one person with their mind made up can shove a lot of folks aroun'! You win, Ma. Put away that jack handle 'fore you hurt somebody.

No se necesita valor para hacer una cosa cuando es lo único que puedes hacer.

Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin' man can talk the murder right out of his mouth an' not do no murder. You done right. Don't you kill nobody if you can help it.