John Steinbeck quotes - page 16

... and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. (John Steinbeck)
Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man. View quote
John Steinbeck
You don't even know where I'm going." "I don't care. I'd like to go anywhere. View quote
John Steinbeck
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. View quote
John Steinbeck
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. View quote
John Steinbeck
Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms. View quote
John Steinbeck
The flies have conquered the flypaper. View quote
John Steinbeck
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. View quote
John Steinbeck
This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. View quote
John Steinbeck
If lowborn men could stand up to those born to rule, religion, government, the whole world would fall to pieces...[Merlin replies]...So it would; so it will ... then the pieces will be put together again by such as destroyed it. View quote
John Steinbeck
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. (John Steinbeck)
That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. View quote
John Steinbeck
We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. View quote
John Steinbeck
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. View quote
John Steinbeck
A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill? View quote
John Steinbeck
A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory. View quote
John Steinbeck
I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar - if he is financially fortunate. View quote
John Steinbeck
One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards. View quote
John Steinbeck
The impulse of the American woman to geld her husband and castrate her sons is very strong. View quote
John Steinbeck
The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. View quote
John Steinbeck
Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him. (John Steinbeck)
The break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath. View quote
John Steinbeck
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. View quote
John Steinbeck
I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied. View quote
John Steinbeck
The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the town lets wither a time and die. View quote
John Steinbeck