Quotes About Community

Come along, said Joad. Pa'll be glad to see you. He always said you got too long a pecker for a preacher. He picked up his coat roll and tightened it snugly about his shoes and turtle.

Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody to be near him

In a small town where everyone knows everyone it is almost impossible to believe that one of your acquaintance could murder anyone. For that reason, if the signs are not pretty strong in a particular direction, it must be some dark stranger, some wanderer from the outside world where such things happen.

It seemed to me that the earth was generous and outgoing here in the heartland, and perhaps the people took a cue from it.

Sto imparando una cosa importante, disse. La sto imparando ogni momento, tutt'i giorni. Quando stai male o magari hai bisogno o sei nei guai... va' dalla povera gente. Soltanto loro ti danno una mano... soltanto loro.

The new migrants from the dust bowl are here to stay. They are the vest American stock, intelligent, resourceful; and, if given a chance, socially responsible. To attempt to force them into a peonage of starvation and intimidated despair will be unsuccessful. They can be citizens of the highest type, or they can be an army driven by suffering to take what they need. On their future treatment will depend the course they will be force to take.

Al said, We'll burn right up if we got climbin' to do. Have to throw out some a' this stuff. Maybe, we shouldn' a brang that preacher. You'll be glad a that preacher 'fore we're through, said Ma. That preacher'll help us.

You got to have patience. Why, Tom—us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people—we go on.

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They

It was Jesus Maria's practice to go to the post office every day, first because there he could see many people whom he knew, and second because on that windy post office corner he could look at the legs of a great many girls.

They's scandalous things goes on in this here camp,'' she said darkly. "Ever' Sat'dy night they's dancin', an' not only squar' dancin', neither. They's some does clutch-an'-hug dancin'! I seen 'em.

He was a stranger to all the world, but he was not lonely.

Caleb and Aaron—now you are people and you have joined the fraternity and you have the right to be damned.

Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything.

Swedes up in Dakota—know what they do sometimes? Put pepper on the floor. Gits up the ladies' skirts an' makes 'em purty lively—lively as a filly in season. Swedes do that sometimes." In

The guest list, if there had been one, was a little like a census.

A man can do a lot of damage in the church. When someone comes here, he's got his guard up. But in church a man's wide open.

Here we sit," he began at last. "—broken-hearted," Pilon added rhythmically.

From start to finish I found no strangers. If I had, I might be able to report them more objectively. But these are my people and this my country. If I found matters to criticize and to deplore, they were tendencies equally present in myself.

How much is whiskey a gallon?" "I don't know," said Hughie. "I never get more than a half pint at a time myself—at one time that is. I figure you get a quart and right away you got friends. But you get a half pint and you can drink it in the lot before— well before you got a lot of folks around.

The preacher said, "She looks tar'd.'' "Women's always tar'd,'' said Tom. "That's just the way women is, 'cept at meetin' once an' again.

Tom Joad lays it out: ... A fella ain't got a soul of his own - just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody …

The group, the herd, which is any collection of children.

How far's the nex' town? I seen forty-two cars a you fellas go by yesterday. Where you all come from? Where all of you goin'? Well, California's a big State. It ain't that big. The whole United States ain't that big. It ain't that big. It ain't big enough. There ain't room enough for you an' me, for your kind an' my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat. Whyn't you go back where you come from?