Quotes from John Steinbeck

To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. 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. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and to a monster the norm is monstrous.

The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.

Do you think I'm a child? she asked. Not any more, said Adam, I'm beginning to think you're a twisted human--or no human at all.

On'y way you gonna get me to go is whup me.' She moved the jack handle gently again. 'An' I'll shame you, Pa. I won't take no whuppin', cryin' an' a-beggin'. I'll light into you. An' you ain't so sure you can whup me anyways. An' if ya do get me, I swear to God I'll wait till you got your back turned, or you're settin' down, an' I'll knock you belly-up with a bucket. I swear to Holy Jesus' sake I will.

The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.

The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days.

My friend Jack Wagner has often, in Mexico, assumed this state of being. Let us say we wanted to walk in the streets of Mexico ity but not at random. We would choose some article almost certain not to exist there and then diligently try to find it.

It is possible that the chauffeurs of Moscow are very rich and happy people, but they are necessary, since it is difficult for a foreigner to get a driver's license. One correspondent took his examination for a license, but he failed on the question, "What does not belong on an automobile?" He could think of many things that did not belong on an automobile and finally picked one, but he was wrong. The proper answer was "mud.

Thank God this man has no message. Thank God he has no will to be remembered, to be believed in." And, in sudden heresy, "else there might be a new Christ here in the West.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

His reaction to the idea was not simple. He felt a great warmth that they should want to give him a party and at the same time he quaked inwardly remembering the last one they had given. Now everything fell into place-Mack's question and the silences when he was about. He thought of it a lot that night sitting beside his desk. He glanced about considering what things would have to be locked up. He knew the party was going to cost him plenty.

You wouldn't lay a trap for me? Lee asked. My wish isn't as strong as it once was. I'm afraid I could be talked out of it or, what would be worse, I could be held back just by being needed. Please try not to need me. That's the worst bait of all to a lonely man.

For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.

A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly. She wished her father were here. Her father had felt greatness in Tom. Perhaps he would know now how to release it out of its darkness and let it fly free.

in him kindness and conscience are so large that they are almost faults.

Pilon complained, It is not a good story. There are too many meanings and too many lessons in it. Some of those lessons are opposite. There is not a story to take into your head. It proves nothing. I like it, said Pablo. I like it because it hasn't any meaning you can see, and still it does seem to mean something, I can't tell what.

I seen turtles all my life. They're always goin' someplace. They always seem to want to get there.

And then the leaves break out on the trees, and the petals drop from the fruit trees and carpet the earth with pink and white. The centers of the blossoms swell and grow and color: cherries and apples, peaches and pears, figs which close the flower in the fruit. All California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy, and the limbs bend gradually under the fruit so that little crutches must be placed under them to support the weight.

You can't start with a democracy. You have to work up through stuff like tyranny and monarchy first. That way people are so relieved when they get to democracy that they hang on to it.

Adam fluttered like a bewildered bee confused by too many flowers.

What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?

Can you think that whatever made us—would stop trying?

I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb.