The curious hocus-pocus of criticism I can't take seriously. It consists in squirreling up some odd phrases and then waiting for a… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
They must be real people. And this means that every word in every line of speech must be accurate and full of… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
...Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven,… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Your days are like pages, the chapters unread. You have to keep turning your book has no end.” — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now--only that place where the books… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Oh, I guess I'm physically able to father a child. That's not what I'm thinking. I'm too closely married to a quiet… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Literature is not a game for the cloistered elect. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires.… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
The literature of science is filled with answers found when the question propounded had an entirely different direction and end. — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
For the first time I am working on a book that is not limited and that will take every bit of experience… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Unless a writer's capable of solitude, he should leave books alone and go into the theater.” — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Let’s get it over and the door closed shut on it! Let’s close it like a book and go on reading! New… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“He did not know, and perhaps this doctor did. And he could not take the chance of pitting his certain ignorance against… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“When he read his father’s books, he was the first. He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Then there were his education and his reading, the books he bought and borrowed, his knowledge of things that could not be… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination,… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“Samuel said that Tom was quavering over greatness, trying to decide whether he could take the cold responsibility. Samuel knew his son’s… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. My three [great teachers] did not… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork. — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“And now submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.” — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“I’d think there are degrees of greatness,” Adam said. “I don’t think so,” said Samuel. “That would be like saying there is a little… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“He was forever inventing a new way of doing an old thing and doing it better and quicker, but he never in his whole… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
“You come back a changed man. Samuel, you don’t change him. He changes you. I can see the look of him in your face.”… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house,… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the… — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
