Quotes by John Steinbeck

Jus live the day. Don worry yaself.

Relationship Time to Aloneness. Having a companion fixes you in time and that of the present, but when the quality of aloneness settles down, past, present and future all flow together. A memory, a present event, and a forecast all equally present.

The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.

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

And now submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.

Smile and thank God, that you are alive today!

You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.

Eventlessness has no post to drape duration on.

The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Death was a friend, and sleep was Deaths brother.

Coming out of sleep, I had the advantage of two worlds, the layered firmament of dream and the temporal fixtures of the mind awake. I stretched luxuriously—a good and tingling sensation. Its as though the skin has shrunk in the night and one must push it out to daytime size by bulging the muscles, and theres an a itching pleasure in it.

I have thought the difference might be that my Mary knows she will live forever, that she will step from the living into another life as easily as she slips from sleep to wakefulness. She knows this with her whole body, so completely that she does not think of it any more than she thinks to breathe. Thus she has time to sleep, time to rest, time to cease to exist for a little.

What pillow can one have like a good conscience?

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

I know, Ma. Im a-tryin. But them deputies- Did you ever see a deputy that didnt have a fat ass? An they waggle their ass an flop their gun aroun. Ma, he said, if it was the law they was workin with, why we could take it. But it aint the law. Theyre a-working away at our spirits. Theyre a-tryin to make us cringe an crawl like a whipped bitch. Theyre tryin to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the ony way a fella can keep his decency is by takin a sock at a cop. Theyre working on our decency.

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders.

If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen . . . A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.

And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule - a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar.

... you cant start with a democracy. You have to work up through stuff like tyranny and monarchy first. That way people are so relived when they get to democracy that they hang on to it.

Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. I had enough, he said coldly. You got no rights comin in a colored mans room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus get out, an get out quick. If you dont, Im gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more.She turned on him in scorn. Listen, Nigger, she said. You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?Crooks stared helplessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.She closed on him. You know what I could do?Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. Yes, maam.Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it aint even funny.Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego--nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said, Yes, maam, and his voice was toneless.For a moment she stood over him as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in. She turned at last to the other two.