Quotes by John Steinbeck

I wonder about people who say they havent time to think. For myself, I can double think. I find that weighing vegetables, passing the time of day with customers, fighting or loving Mary, coping with the children-- none of these prevents a second and continuing layer of thinking, wondering, conjecturing. Surely this must be true of everyone. Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.

Well, a mans mind cant stay in time the way his body does.

An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. Theres a punishment for it, and its usually crucifixion.

What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.

How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and clearness is there, maybe the result of the black reasoning. And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it.

Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too.

The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was dark inside. He felt his way to the mattress on the floor, and he stretched out and cried in his bed, and the cars whizzing by on the highway only strengthened the walls of his loneliness.

Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is--and a woman too, I guess.

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength. ... When any living organism is attacked, its whole function seems to aim toward reproduction.

They got to live before they can afford to die.

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

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

...“Maybe it’s like this, Max--you know how, when you are working on a long and ordered piece, all sorts of bright and lovely ideas and images intrude. They have no place in what you are writing, and so if you are young, you write them in a notebook for future use. And you never use them because they are sparkling and alive like colored pebbles on a wave-washed shore. It’s impossible not to fill your pockets with them. But when you get home, they are dry and colorless. I’d like to pin down a few while they are still wet.”...John Steinbeck

Consider the blundering anarchic system of the United States the stupidity of some of its lawmakers, the violent reaction, the slowness of its ability to change. Twenty-five key men destroyed could make the Soviet Union stagger, but we could lose our congress, our president, and our general staff and nothing much would have happened. We would go right on. In fact we might be better for it.

Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to.

In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate mans proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.—Steinbeck Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Fella says today, Depression is over. I seen a jackrabbit, an they wasnt nobody after him. An another fella says, That aint the reason. Cant afford to kill jackrabbits no more. Catch em and milk em an turn em loose. One you seen probly gone dry.

Casy said, Ol Toms house cant be moren a mile from here. Aint she over that third rise?Sure, said Joad. Less somebody stole it, like Pa stole it.Your pa stole it?Sure, got it a mile an a half east of here an drug it. Was a family livin there, an they moved away. Grampa an Pa an my brother Noah like to took the whole house, but she wouldnt come. They only got part of her. Thats why she looks so funny on one end. They cut her in two an drug her over with twelve head of horses and two mules. They was goin back for the other half an stick her together again, but before they got there Wink Manley come with his boys and stole the other half. Pa an Grampa was pretty sore, but a little later them an Wink got drunk together an laughed their heads off about it. Wink, he says his house is a stud, an if well bring ourn over an breed em well maybe get a litter of crap houses. Wink was a great ol fella when he was drunk. After that him an Pa an Grampa was friends. Got drunk together ever chance they got.