Men Quotes by John Steinbeck · Page 2

Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.

— John Steinbeck

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

— John Steinbeck

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

— John Steinbeck

A man who gets few letters does not open one lightly.

— John Steinbeck

Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.

— John Steinbeck

...no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.

— John Steinbeck

A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.

— John Steinbeck

... a man is a very important thing-maybe more important than a star.

— John Steinbeck

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy…

— John Steinbeck

There is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him.

— John Steinbeck

The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man's litter has more permanence.

— John Steinbeck

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions…

— John Steinbeck

If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he'd better do it in a town where he wasn't known.

— John Steinbeck

There is no term comparable to green thumbs to apply to such a mechanic, but there should be. For there are men…

— John Steinbeck

The first grave. Now we're getting someplace. Houses and children and graves, that's home, Tom. Those are the things that hold a…

— John Steinbeck

The warfare between the unaroused male and female is constant and ferocious. Each blames the other for his loss of soul.

— John Steinbeck

You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn't of much…

— John Steinbeck

But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world.…

— John Steinbeck

Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They…

— John Steinbeck

Why do men like me want sons? he wondered. It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these…

— John Steinbeck

[Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had…

— John Steinbeck

There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And…

— John Steinbeck

The ways of sin are curious . . . I guess if a man had to shuck off everything he had, inside…

— John Steinbeck

I've always tried out my material on my dogs first. Years ago, when my red setter chewed up the manuscript of 'Of…

— John Steinbeck

Thou mayest rule over sin,’ Lee. That’s it. I do not believe all men are destroyed. I can name you a dozen…

— John Steinbeck

[Man] is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things—property, houses, money, concepts of power. He…

— John Steinbeck

I think bullfights are for men who aren't very brave and wish they were. If you saw one you'll know what I…

— John Steinbeck

I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities…

— John Steinbeck

“Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and…

— John Steinbeck

“Nearly everyone has had a box of secret pain, shared with no one. Will [Hamilton] had concealed his well, laughed loud, exploited…

— john steinbeck

The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in…

— John Steinbeck

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in…

— John Steinbeck

“That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. ”

— John Steinbeck

Men really do need sea-monsters in their personal oceans

— John Steinbeck

Only let a man say that he will do something and a whole mechanism goes to work to stop him.

— John Steinbeck

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.

— John Steinbeck

Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.

— John Steinbeck

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.

— John Steinbeck

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.

— John Steinbeck

War ... a reversal of the rules where a man is permitted to kill all the humans he can.

— John Steinbeck