John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 47 | Just Great DataBase

An' Grandpa didn' die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the place.You sure a that? Pa criedWhy, no. Oh he was breathin', Casy went on, but he was dead. He was that place, an' he knowed it.

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

And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

I BELIEVE THERE ARE MONSTERS BORN in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places.

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love...We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

She watched his great red happiness, and it was not light as Samuel’s happiness was light. It did not rise out of his roots and come floating up. He was manufacturing happiness as cleverly as he knew how, molding it and shaping it.

A NEW COUNTRY seems to follow a pattern. First come the openers, strong and brave and rather childlike. They can take care of themselves in a wilderness, but they are naïve and helpless against men, and perhaps that is why they went out in the first place. When the rough edges are worn off the new land, businessmen and lawyers come in to help with the development—to solve problems of ownership, usually by removing the temptations to themselves. And finally comes culture, which is entertainment, relaxation, transport out of the pain of living. And culture can be on any level, and is. The

In the winter of wet years the streams ran full-freshet, and they swelled the river until sometimes it raged and boiled, bank full, and then it was a destroyer.

Poor Tom did not know and could not learn that dissembling successfully is one of the creative joys of a businessman. To indicate enthusiasm was to be idiotic.

Maybe you’ll come to know that every man in every generation is refired.

To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and to a monster the norm is monstrous.

Tom said, Let me beg you never to tell that story to Will. He’d have you locked up. But the house wasn’t worth what I asked! I repeat what I said about Will. What’s Adam want with your house? He’s going to move there. Wants the twins to go to school in Salinas. What’ll

FEBRUARY IN SALINAS is likely to be damp and cold and full of miseries. The heaviest rains fall then, and if the river is going to rise, it rises then. February of 1915 was a year heavy with water.

I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

ran to the hallway, screaming for help. The girls and a few Sunday customers crowded into the room. Kate was writhing on the floor. Two of the regulars lifted her onto Faye’s bed and tried to straighten her out, but she screamed and doubled up again. The sweat poured from her body and wet her clothes.

Oh, but strawberries will never taste so good again and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!

she had learned fear now. And her mind sniffed about like a rat looking for an escape.

It was said that its existence protected decent women. An unmarried man could go to one of these houses and evacuate the sexual energy which was making him uneasy and at the same time maintain the popular attitudes about the purity and loveliness of women. It was a mystery, but then there are many mysterious things in our social thinking.

Cal considered. What did my father do to make her leave? He loved her with his whole mind and body. He gave her everything he could imagine.

It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there.