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3e5d54c
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Some days are born ugly. From the very first light they are no damn good what ever the weather, and everbody knows it. No one knows what causes this, but on such a day people resist getting out of bed and set their heels against the day. When they are finally forced out by hunger or job they find that the day is just as lousy as they knew it would be.
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John Steinbeck |
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a536d36
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In all the mad incongruity, the turgid stultiloquy of life, I felt, at least, securely anchored to myself. Whatever the vacillations of other people, I thought myself terrifically constant. But now, here I am, dragging a frayed line, and my anchor gone.
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cool-words
vacillation
incongruity
disillusionment
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John Steinbeck |
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a04acfc
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Sometimes in the summer evenings they walked up the hill to watch the afterglow clinging to the tops of the western mountains and to feel the breeze drawn into the valley by the rising day-heated air. Usually they stood silently for a while and breathed in peacefulness. Since both were shy they never talked about themselves. Neither knew about the other at all.
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men
personality
nature
women
mountains
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John Steinbeck |
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d01037d
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And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
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John Steinbeck |
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57a99e5
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My wife, my Mary, goes to her sleep the way you would close the door of a closet. So many times I have watched her with envy. Her lovely body squirms a moment as though she fitted herself into a cocoon. She sighs once and at the end of it her eyes close and her lips, untroubled, fall into that wise and remote smile of the Ancient Greek gods. She smiles all night in her sleep, her breath purrs in her throat, not a snore, a kitten's purr... S..
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John Steinbeck |
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ac1b90b
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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.
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John Steinbeck |
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e418833
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Ain't you thinkin' what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like we thought? No, she said quickly. No, I ain't. You can't do that. I can't do that. It's too much - livin' too many lives. Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one.
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worry
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John Steinbeck |
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2e1f16c
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How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise - the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream - be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that mi..
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John Steinbeck |
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c442a38
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No gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.
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John Steinbeck |
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14e34aa
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Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institu..
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social-functions
rituals
funerals
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John Steinbeck |
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791a47b
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One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards.
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John Steinbeck |
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0cd2990
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I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.
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John Steinbeck |
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be742b9
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I do love her, and that's odd because she is everything I detest in anyone else.
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love
john-steinbeck
the-winter-of-our-discontent
odd
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John Steinbeck |
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0d450c8
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You see, there's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be.
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John Steinbeck |
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321f49a
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It is a fact verified and recorded in many histories that soul capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil. Who is there more impious than backsliding priest? Who more carnal than a recent virgin? This, however, may be a matter of appearance.
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greatest-good
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John Steinbeck |
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f80b132
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Why don't you go on west to California? There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there?
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John Steinbeck |
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b2f6134
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Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice.
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personality
philosophy
tom-hamilton
psychology
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John Steinbeck |
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9879bca
|
They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.
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John Steinbeck |
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5e614f2
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Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident of human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech.
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uniformity
sterilization
language
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John Steinbeck |
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6e2b2d7
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But Charley doesn't have our problems. He doesn't belong to a species clever enough to split the atom but not clever enough to live in peace with itself. He doesn't even know about race, nor is he concerned with his sisters' marriage. It's quite the opposite. Once Charley fell in love with a dachshund, a romance racially unsuitable, physically ridiculous, and mechanically impossible. But all these problems Charley ignored. He loved deeply a..
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John Steinbeck |
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431005f
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In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what ..
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god
unhappy
fight
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John Steinbeck |
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6d4a6aa
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This is the greatest mystery of the human mind--the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irrelevancies relate, dissonance becomes harmony, and nonsense wears a crown of meaning. But the clarifying leap springs from the rich soil of confusion, and the leaper is not unfamiliar with pain.
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pain
meaning
inductive-leap
dissonance
harmony
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John Steinbeck |
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b029fbb
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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!
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John Steinbeck |
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43d4e2c
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It set him free," said Lee. "It gave him the right to be a man, separate from every other man." "That's lonely." "All great and precious things are lonely." "What is the word again?" "Timshel--thou mayest."
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John Steinbeck |
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21b1e74
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He is one of those whom God has not quite finished.
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John Steinbeck |
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3f55d6d
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It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don't want to do.
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John Steinbeck |
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e84e36f
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I can't tell you how to live your life," Samuel said, "although I do be telling you how to live it. I know that it might be better for you to come out from under your might-have-beens, into the winds of the world. And while I tell you, I am myself sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining--small mining. You're too young a man to be panning me..
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John Steinbeck |
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68761a2
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The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right - the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.
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profound
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John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath |
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4e2f1f7
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I'm tired of people who have not been at war who know all about it.
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John Steinbeck |
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3440b09
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I've always been amused by the contention that brain work is harder than manual labor. I've never known a man to leave a desk for a muck-stick if he could avoid it.
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intelligence
labor-activism
manual-labor
labor
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John Steinbeck |
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bc89e86
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I shall tell them this story against the background of the county I grew up in and along the river I know and do not love very much. For I have discovered that there are other rivers.
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John Steinbeck |
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e9a327b
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The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects ... Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences..
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John Steinbeck |
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8b37dec
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Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much. Jus' som'thin' that was his. Som'thin' he could live on and there couldn't nobody throw him off of it.
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John Steinbeck |
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0eade7c
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Doc still loved true things but he knew that it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.
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John Steinbeck |
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4b7eea6
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Hazel grew up - did four years in grammar school, four years in reform school, and didn't learn a thing in either place. Reform schools are supposed to teach viciousness and criminality but Hazel didn't pay enough attention.
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John Steinbeck |
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cadd0e5
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Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know.
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John Steinbeck |
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383599b
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In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different.
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John Steinbeck |
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8c38212
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With knowledge there is no hope,... without hope I would sit motionless, rusting like unused armor.
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John Steinbeck |
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1cb590d
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The story was gradually taking shape. Pilon liked it this way. It ruined a story to have it all come out quickly. The good story lay in half-told things which must be filled in out of the hearer's own experience.
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John Steinbeck |
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a2c5cf9
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It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leporous.
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John Steinbeck |
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93d30e2
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The tide goes out imperceptibly. The boulders show and seem to rise up and the ocean recedes leaving little pools, leaving wet weed and moss and sponge, iridescence and brown and blue and China red. On the bottoms lie the incredible refuse of the sea, shells broken and chipped and bits of skeleton, claws, the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble.
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John Steinbeck |
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edd9163
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No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe.
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John Steinbeck |
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3bd754a
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On neighbors looking over his camper:] I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation--a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any here... nearly every American hungers to move.
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John Steinbeck |
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886a9d2
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We have never understood why men mount the heads of animals and hang them up to look down on their conquerors. Possibly it feels good to these men to be superior to animals, but it does seem that if they were sure of it they would not have to prove it. Often a man who is afraid must constantly demonstrate his courage and, in the case of the hunter, must keep a tangible record of his courage. For ourselves, we have had mounted in a small har..
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trophy
hunting
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John Steinbeck |