Quotes by John Steinbeck

You dont even know where Im going.I dont care. Id like to go anywhere.

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.

Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans

In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won’t happen. As the day approached, my warm bed and comfortable house grew increasingly desirable and my dear wife incalculably precious. To give these up for three months for the terrors of the uncomfortable and unknown seemed crazy. I didn’t want to go. Something had to happen to forbid my going, but it didn’t.

And then I saw what I was to see so many times on the journey--a look of longing. Lord! I wish I could go.

And then I saw what I was to see so many times on the journey—a look of longing. “Lord! I wish I could go.” “Don’t you like it here?” “Sure. It’s all right, but I wish I could go.” “You don’t even know where I’m going.”“I don’t care. I’d like to go anywhere.

Up ahead theys a thousan lives we might live, but when it comes, itll ony be one. If I go ahead on all of em, its too much. You got to live ahead cause youre so young, but—its jus the road goin by for me.

There are map people whose joy is to lavish more attention on the sheets of colored paper than on the colored land rolling by. I have listened to accounts by such travelers in which every road number was remembered, every mileage recalled, and every little countryside discovered. Another kind of traveler requires to know in terms of maps exactly where he is pin-pointed at every moment, as though there were some kind of safety in black and red lines, in dotted indications and squirming blue of lakes and the shadings that indicate mountains. It is not so with me. I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found, nor much identification from shapes which symbolize continents and states.

When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.

An I got to thinkin, ony it wasnt thinkin, it was deeper down than thinkin.

I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone recieved the news with pleasure. Several said, Thank God that son of a bitch is dead.Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a mans love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise...There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, What can we do now? How can we go on without him? In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, mo matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror....we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

All great and precious things are lonely.

A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone each winter for eight months at a stretch in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Lake Tahoe. I was the caretaker on a summer estate during the winter months when it was snowed in. And I made some observations then. As time went on I found that my reactions thickened. Ordinarily I am a whistler. I stopped whistling. I stopped conversing with my dogs, and I believe that the subtleties of feeling began to disappear until finally I was on a pleasure-pain basis. Then it occurred to me that the delicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. Can its reverse be true- a man who has no one to say anything to has no words as he has no need for words? ... Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.

... but she was also bewilderingly lonely... Abra had lost her gift for being alone.

This is just a nigger talkin, an a busted-back nigger. So it dont mean nothing, see? You couldnt remember it anyways. I seen it over an over-a guy talkin to another guy and it dont make no difference if he dont hear or understand. The thing is, theyre talkin, or theyre settin still not talkin. It dont make no difference, no difference.

He stopped, feeling lonely in his long speech.

This is the greatest mystery of the human mind--the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irrelevancies relate, dissonance becomes harmony, and nonsense wears a crown of meaning. But the clarifying leap springs from the rich soil of confusion, and the leaper is not unfamiliar with pain.

Once Ed said to me, For a very long time I didnt like myself. It was not said in self-pity but simply as an unfortunate fact. It was a very difficult time, he said, and very painful. I did not like myself for a number of reasons, some of them valid and some of them pure fancy. I would hate to have to go back to that. Then gradually, he said, I discovered with surprise and pleasure that a number of people did like me. And I thought, if they can like me, why cannot I like myself? Just thinking it did not do it, but slowly I learned to like myself and then it was all right. This was not said in self-love in its bad connotation but in self-knowledge. He meant literally that he had learned to accept and like the person Ed as he liked other people. It gave him a great advantage. Most people do not like themselves at all. They distrust themselves, put on masks and pomposities. They quarrel and boast and pretend and are jealous because they do not like themselves. But mostly they do not even know themselves well enough to form a true liking. They cannot see themselves well enough to form a true liking, and since we automatically fear and dislike strangers, we fear and dislike our stranger-selves.

I dont want advice. Nobody does. Its a givers present.

Some people think it’s an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well.