Quotes from John Steinbeck

Never did seem right to me. S'pose Curley jumps a big guy an' licks him. Ever'body says what a game guy Curley is. And s'pose he does the same thing and gets licked. Then ever'body says the big guy oughtta pick somebody his own size, and maybe they gang up on the big guy. Seems like Curley ain't givin' nobody a chance.

To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish.

And when a man's feelings are hurt he wants to strike at something, and Abel was in the way of his anger.

With the evening the air was so full of their song that it was a kind of roaring silence. It was a veil, a background, and its sudden disappearance, as after a clap of thunder, was a shocking thing…In their millions the frog songs seemed to have a beat and a cadence, and perhaps it is the ears' function to do this just as it is the eyes' business to make stars twinkle.

Nearly everyone has his box of secret shame, shared with no one.

Where the rich lead,the poor will follow, or try to.

repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

I don't know how it will be in the years to come. There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good… At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

I love you," I said. And I do. I really do. And I remember thinking what a hell of a man a man could become.

He thought that she possessed the two great gifts: she was smart and she got the breaks— and you couldn't want no better than that.

It seems to me that young people have lost their faith in America. Our ancestors had faith.

The ship started a school of fliers that skipped along the wave tops like shining silver coins. These are the ghosts of treasures ost at sea, the cook went on, the murder things, emeralds and diamonds and gold; the sins of men, committed for them, stick to them and make them haunt the ocean. Ah! It's a poor thing if a sailor will not make a grand tale about it. Henry pointed to a great tortoise asleep on the surface. And what is the tale of the turtles? He asked. Nothing; only food...

The one thing our species is helpless against is good fortune. It first puzzles, then frightens, then angers, and finally destroys us.

The men of Spain held ground for a little while, but then their hearts broke under their fine red coats, and they ran away to hide in the jungle.

That man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself.

If two generous paths branch from the highroad of life and only one can be followed, who is to judge which is best?

He stopped, feeling lonely in his long speech.

Una mentira es algo bueno y valioso. Un objeto precioso e imponderable que conviene tener en reserva. Pero nunca utilices esta joya hasta que hayas agotado todas las verdades. La verdad es patrimonio común, algo que siempre está a mano, pero las mentiras hay que inventarlas y jamás puedes estar seguro de su eficacia hasta que las hayas usado... y entonces es demasiado tarde

Try to believe that things are neither so good nor so bad as they seem to you now.

Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain't even funny.

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him—he has known a fear beyond every other.

Riches seem to come to the poor in spirit, the poor in interest and joy. To put it straight—the very rich are a poor bunch of bastards. He wondered if that were true. They acted that way sometimes.

I was told that since my photograph was as widely distributed as my publisher could make it, I would find it impossible to move about without being recognized. Let me say in advance that in over ten thousand miles, in thirty-four states, I was not recognized even once.