Quotes About John Steinbeck

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

I have written about some truly great writers - John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and William Faulkner. Faulkner and Frost were the very peaks of American poetry and fiction in the 20th century.

My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

Travels with Charley, which Lori was devouring. John Steinbeck's tale of road-tripping in a pickup camper with his French poodle was popular among the nomads, and dog-eared copies passed from hand to hand.

I get heartbroken flying into L.A. It's just this feeling of unspecific loss. Can you imagine what the San Fernando Valley was when it was all wheat fields? Can you imagine what John Steinbeck saw?

John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.

I was born January 6, 1937, eight years after Wall Street crashed and two years before John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the plight of a family during the Great Depression.

It is worth noting that the writers who have most vividly captured the feel of the California landscape have been native sons, like John Steinbeck, or long residents like Robinson Jeffers.

One victim was sixteen-year-old John Steinbeck. The future author of The Grapes of Wrath returned home from his Californian school one day looking 'pale and dizzy

Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.

The craft of writing is the art of penetrating other minds with the figures that are in your own mind.

I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.

During my first tour of Vietnam, John Steinbeck and his wife were there and we had Christmas dinner together.

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

At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.

This is not theology. I have no bent towards gods. But i have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.

The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous...but not quite.

In the bathroom two water tumblers were sealed in cellophane sacks with the words: These glasses are sterilized for your protection. Across the toilet seat a strip of paper bore the message: This seat has been sterilized with ultraviolet light for your protection. Everyone was protecting me and it was horrible.

I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some effection, but with Montana it is love.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

It is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.

in 50 years, did you ever have a vacation, you little, silly, half-pint, smidgin of a wife?