John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 15 | Just Great DataBase

Maybe there ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue, they's just what people does. Some things folks do is nice and some ain't so nice, and that's all any man's got a right to say.

I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads . . . every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.

Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live - for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died...And this you can know - fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.

We do know that we are cheated from birth to the overcharge on our coffins.

And because they were in some way one thing and one purpose, she smiled with him.And they began this day with hope.

Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom.

Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears that the solar system of stars.

The Word is symbol of delight which sucks up men and scenes, trees, plants, factories, and Pekinese. Then the Thing becomes the Word and the back to Thing again, but warped and woven into a fantastic pattern.

He smiled at her as a man might smile at a memory.

Thou mayest rule over sin,’ Lee. That’s it. I do not believe all men are destroyed. I can name you a dozen who were not, and they are the ones the world lives by. It is true of the spirit as it is true of battles—only the winners are remembered. Surely most men are destroyed, but there are others who like pillars of fire guide frightened men through the darkness. ‘Thou mayest, Thou mayest!’ What glory! It is true that we are weak and sick and quarrelsome, but if that is all we ever were, we would, millenniums ago, have disappeared from the face of the earth. A few remnants of fossilized jawbone, some broken teeth in strata of limestone, would be the only mark man would have left of his existence in the world. But the choice, Lee, the choice of winning! I had never understood it or accepted it before. Do you see now why I told Adam tonight? I exercised the choice. Maybe I was wrong, but by telling him I also forced him to live or get off the pot. What is that word, Lee?Timshel, said Lee.

And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely.

Maybe everyone is too rich. I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house, and he will die of despair.

The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.

A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy—that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don’t want to do.

I know it might be better for you to come out from under your might-have-beens, into the winds of the world.

of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And i here make a rule - a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar.

At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.

Then there were harebells, tiny lanterns, cream white and almost sinful looking, and these were so rare and magical that a child, finding one, felt singled out and special all day long.