Quotes About Struggle

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.

The honest preachers had energy and go. They fought the devil, no holds barred, boots and eye-gouging permitted. You might get the idea that they howled truth and beauty the way a seal bites out the National Anthem on a row of circus horns. But some of the truth and beauty remained, and the anthem was recognizable.

A man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves.

Well, we all got to make a livin'. Yeah, Tom said. On'y I wisht they was some way to make her 'thout takin' her away from somebody else.

For if ever any man were deeply and unconsciously sure that his future would be no better than his past, he might deeply wish to cease to live.

We still go where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right.' - Tom Joad (Jr.)

The bank - or the Company - needs - wants -insists - must have - as though the bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them... The banks were machines and masters all at the same time... They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it they die... It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.

A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty.

Crooks avoided the whole subject now. "Maybe you guys better go," he said. "I ain't sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don't like 'em.

Maybe you've tumbled a world for me. And I don't know what I can build in my world's place.

Behind him hobbled Granma, who had survived only because she was as mean as her husband. She had held her own with a shrill ferocious religiosity that was as lecherous and as savage as anything Grampa could offer. . . As she walked she hiked her Mother Hubbard up to her knees, and she bleated her shrill terrible war cry: Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory.

It was strange to Old Robert that he, who knew so much more than his neighbors, who had pondered so endlessly, should be not even a good farmer. Sometimes he imagined he understood too many things ever to do anything well.

You have defied not the pearl buyers, but the whole structure, the whole way of life, and I am afraid for you

How pure he is, how unfit for a world that even she knew more about than he did. A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly.

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.

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.

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.

In the souls of people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared. I'm scared.

No matter how weak and negative a good man is, he has as many sins on him as he can bear.

Ale já se takovejch moc pÄ›knejch vÄ›cí bojím.

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.

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.

Tom bruised himself on the world and licked his cuts.