John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 26 | Just Great DataBase

...perhaps that might be the way to write this book--to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.

girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in a irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day.

Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head.

he called his approach non-teleological thinking, or is thinking. The term non-teleological was coined by Steinbeck’s best friend, Edward F. Ricketts; and as the two men articulated their shared philosophy, they emphasized the need to see as clearly as a scientist: that is, to accept life on its own terms. Is thinking focused not on ends but on the process of life, the Aristotelean efficient cause of nature.

Yeah, said George. I’ll come. But listen, Curley. The poor bastard’s nuts. Don’t shoot ‘im. He di’n’t know what he was doin’.

I have always thought that perhaps formal good manners may be a cushion against heartbreak.

Abra looked at his sunny hair, tight-curled now, and at the eyes that seemed so near to tears, and she felt the longing and itching burn in her chest that is the beginning of love. Also, she wanted to touch Aron, and she did. She put her hand on his arm and felt him shiver under her fingers.

How pure he is, how unfit for a world that even she knew more about than he did. A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly.

A thing so triumphantly illogical, so beautifully senseless as an army can’t allow a question to weaken it.

Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself?

In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid any more.

You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.

Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too. - Tom Joad

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line.

Will you stay to dinner?" Adam asked."I will not be responsible for the murder of more chickens," said Samuel."Lee's got a pot roast.""Well, in that case--

But us, we got a job to do, and there's a thousand ways, and we don't know which one to take. And if I was to pray, it'd be for the folks that don't know which way to turn.

You’re growing up. Maybe that’s it, he said softly. Sometimes I think the world tests us most sharply then, and we turn inward and watch ourselves with horror. But that’s not the worst. We think everybody is seeing into us. Then dirt is very dirty and purity is shining white.

سأضاجع من تريدني في المزارع دون تخف او خداع,سأسب وأشتم,وأسمع الاشعار والمواويل شعبيه,وكل ماهو مقدس,وكل ما لم افهمه وكل هذه الاشياء الطيبه

Aron said slowly. I wouldn’t want to know that. I’d like to know why you do it. You’re always at something. I just wonder why you do it. I wonder what’s it good for.A pain pierced Cal’s heart. His planning suddenly seemed mean and dirty to him. He knew that his brother had found him out. And he felt a longing for Aron to love him. He felt lost and hungry and hedidn’t know what to do.