Want Quotes by John Steinbeck

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

— John Steinbeck

I'll want to hear,' Samuel said. 'I eat stories like grapes.

— John Steinbeck

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.

— John Steinbeck

If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much - make it greedy, miserable and sick.

— John Steinbeck

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

— John Steinbeck

If you want to keep a friend, never test him.

— John Steinbeck

People don't want advice...only corroboration.

— John Steinbeck

People do not want advice - they want corroboration.

— John Steinbeck

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved.

— John Steinbeck

With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

— John Steinbeck

So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic because we don't want them around us and we don't…

— John Steinbeck

When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.

— John Steinbeck

Pictures... are also opinions... [they] set down what the camera operator sees and he sees what he wants to see and what…

— John Steinbeck

“Money's easy to make if it's money you want. But with few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they…

— John Steinbeck

I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in…

— 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…

— John Steinbeck

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved.…

— John Steinbeck

If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it-bypass it and go on.…

— John Steinbeck

A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination,…

— John Steinbeck

Dear Lord,' he said. 'let me be like Aron. Don’t make me mean. I don’t want to be. If you will let…

— John Steinbeck

The dairy man had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and he must have had some training in philosophy. He liked what he was…

— John Steinbeck

For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this…

— John Steinbeck

My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and power and prove my manhood…

— 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

Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in…

— 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

After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he…

— John Steinbeck

I start out to write five days a week, and then it runs to six days and finally seven. Then, eventually, that…

— John Steinbeck

“I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's…

— John Steinbeck

What do I want in a doctor? Perhaps more than anything else-a friend with special knowledge.

— John Steinbeck

We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.

— John Steinbeck

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough,…

— John Steinbeck

I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.

— John Steinbeck

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