Top John Steinbeck Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

John Steinbeck Biography

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (/ˈstaɪnbɛk/; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters", and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.

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John Steinbeck Quotes

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time.

Doe, Fed, Fields, Gnaws, Hunger, Time

For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.

Challenges, Determined, Men, Ostracism, Stigma, Two

I am writing this from what we Americans call Yurrp. In Yurrp writers are taken as seriously as Lana Turner's legs are in America - a ridiculous situation.

Americans, Home, Ridiculous, Taken, Travel

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.

Business, Clothes, Deflect, Man, Men, Women

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

Adversity, Common, Experience, Good Morning, Life, Problem

It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.

Hard, Hate, Routine, Routine Life, Thing

A creative person has to be alive. He can't borrow from things he's done in the past. He can't let his method choose his subjects or his characters. They can't be warped to fit his style.

Character, Choose, Fit, Past, Things, Writing

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

Back, Courage, Hurt, Lie, Lying

If I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an' no trouble.

Easy, Jobs, Live, Men, Trouble

Then it is better, sir, to love whom one cannot have?" "Probably better," Lancelot said. "Certainly safer.

Lancelot, Probably, Safer, Said, Sir

It seems to me Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda.

Agenda, Color, Land, Mountain, Rich

. . . you must not expect to find that people understand what they do.

Expect, People, Understand

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.

Empathy, Feels, People, Understand

Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

Art, Boys, Bums, Coyote, Father, Zest

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

Eden, Evil, Novels, Occurs, Poetry, Vices

When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.

Cold, Dying, Genius, Matter, Men, Talents

I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.

Children, Forbade, Joy, Things, Thinking

On all levels American society is rigged. I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.

Basis, Country, Cynical, Levels, Survive

Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em.

Ems, Kill, Mice, Trouble

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.

One Day, Cards, Tables, Neat, Lay, Deck

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