All 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… All
- It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming. Any
- In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable. Explain
- The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. Both
- I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature. Any
- Time is the only critic without ambition. Ambition
- I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned… Avoided
- The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. Book
- I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier? Approaching
- Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic. Been
- Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. Blast
- Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals. Clown
- You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway. Advice
- Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. Accomplishment
- It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago… Ago
- Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is… Army
- These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them… Accidentally
- So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a… Arrived
- After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed.… Bare
- You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that… Atmospheric
- He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time. All
- But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the… Choice
- [Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked… Angel
- For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative… America
- Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and… Almost Always