Category: Author John Steinbeck

Puts a weight on ya. Goin’ out lookin’ for somepin you know you ain’t gonna find. John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath 7 Minds me of a story they tell about Willy Feeley when he was a young fella. Willy was bashful, awful bashful. Well, one day he takes a heifer over to Graves’ bull.…

I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times. John Steinbeck East of Eden 9 I think there must have been some other girl printed somewhere in his heart, for he was a man of love and his wife was not…

Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. John Steinbeck East of Eden 2 Lord, how the day passes! It’s like a life—so quickly when we don’t watch it and so slowly…

Riches seem to come to the poor in spirit, the poor in interest and joy. To put it straight—the very rich are a poor bunch of bastards. He wondered if that were true. They acted that way sometimes. He John Steinbeck East of Eden 1 I never fixed no car in my life ‘thout cuttin’…

difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I John Steinbeck East of Eden…

Finally, although they didn’t want to, Hazel and Jones were chosen to call on Doc. They found him working over a tide chart while he ate a chicken stew of which the principal ingredient was not chicken but sea cucumber. They thought he looked at them a little coldly. It’s Darling, they said. She’s sick.…

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris John Steinbeck Cannery Row 1 THE SPRING IS BEAUTIFUL in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink…

And the books that came into the house, some of them secretly—well, Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts,…

The law was designed to save, not to destroy. John Steinbeck East of Eden 1 They’ll change the face of the countryside. They get their clatter into everything, the postmaster went on. We even feel it here. Man used to come for his mail once a week. Now he comes every day, sometimes twice a…

Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don’t believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. John Steinbeck East of Eden 64 Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are…