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da14d6f
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There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.
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John Steinbeck |
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e8c0040
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And, of course, people are only interested 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.
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John Steinbeck |
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62fdaa6
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Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.
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John Steinbeck |
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8f9a957
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For it is not true that an uneventful time in the past is remembered as fast. On the contrary, it takes the time-stones of events t give a memory past dimension. Eventlessness collapses time.
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John Steinbeck |
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cfd5a63
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The candle aimed its spark of light at heaven, like an artist who consumes himself to become divine.
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John Steinbeck |
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119c034
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We will rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly... In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.
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John Steinbeck |
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9e386aa
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He's got a can up there,' Richard said.
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wonderful
reflection
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John Steinbeck |
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b9711da
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Yes, I'll be glad." And she said suddenly, "There are some times, Joseph, when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow." He looked quickly at her in astonishment at her statement of his own thought. "How did you think that, dear?" "I don't know. Why?" "Because I was thinking it at that moment -- and there are times when the people and the hills and the earth, all, everything except the stars, are one, and the love of them all i..
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John Steinbeck |
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275f6ce
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Is it responsibility or blame that bothers you?" "I don't want blame." "Sometimes responsibility is worse. It doesn't carry any pleasant egotism." "I was thinking about that time when Sam Hamilton and you and I had a long discussion about a word," said Adam. "What was that word?" "Now I see. The word was timshel." "Timshel-and you said-" "I said that word carried a man's greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it." "I remember Sam Hami..
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John Steinbeck |
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1a993af
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He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and halfgod"
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John Steinbeck |
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d3b6869
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She planted that terror of debt so deeply in her children that even now, in a changed economic pattern where indebtedness is a part of living, I become restless when a bill is two days overdue. Olive never accepted the time-payment plan when it became popular. A thing bought on time was a thing you did not own and for which you were in debt. She saved for things she wanted, and this meant that the neighbours had new gadgets as much as two y..
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money
spending
credit
economy
saving
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John Steinbeck |
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37ae49c
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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. Ever'body was out but Elsie Graves, and Elsie wasn't bashful at all. Willy, he stood there turnin' red an' he couldn't even talk. Elsie says, 'I know what you come for; the bull's out in back a the barn.' Well, they took the heifer out there an' Willy an' Elsie sat on the fence t..
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heifer
jokes
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John Steinbeck |
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a528274
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Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?
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John Steinbeck |
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42d5780
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You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn't of much importance. Most of your orders will be unpleasant, but that's not your business.They should've trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led along with lies.
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war
military
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John Steinbeck |
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70eef0b
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The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line.
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John Steinbeck |
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6241e83
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That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.
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John Steinbeck |
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a836540
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The ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny bodies and the little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him. He watched the ants moving, a little column of them near to his foot, and he put his foot in their path. Then the column climbed over his instep and continued on its way, and Kino left his foot there and watched the..
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John Steinbeck |
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5da4285
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It became his habit to creep out of bed even before his mother was awake, to slip into his clothes and to go quietly down to the barn to see Gabilan. In the grey quiet mornings when the land and the brush and the houses and the trees were silver-grey and black like a photograph negative, he stole toward the barn, past the sleeping stones and the sleeping cypress tree. The turkeys, roosting in the tree out of coyotes' reach, clicked drowsily..
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John Steinbeck |
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0340061
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The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if no other way, we can see the wild an reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index.
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waste
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John Steinbeck |
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f816897
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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 must I fight against?
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thought-provoking
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John Steinbeck |
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403e471
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It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second." "Who wants to be good if he has to be h..
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John Steinbeck |
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802de82
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The compass simply represents the ideal, present but unachievable, and sight-steering a compromise with perfection which allows your boat to exist at all.
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John Steinbeck |
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ee058e2
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Wishing just brought earned disappointment.
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john-steinbeck
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John Steinbeck |
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7641c4a
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Curious how a place unvisited can take such hold on the mind so that the very name sets up a ringing.
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trip
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John Steinbeck |
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afceb93
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Seems to me you put too much stock in the affairs of children. It probably didn't mean anything." "Yes, it meant something." Then he said, "Mr. Trask, do you think the thoughts of people suddenly become important at a given age? Do you have sharper feelings or clearer thoughts now than when you were ten? Do you see as well, hear as well, taste as vitally?" "Maybe you're right," said Adam. "It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me," s..
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John Steinbeck |
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ef02b85
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There's a capacity for apetite," Samuel said, "that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy"
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John Steinbeck |
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a69efcf
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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 naive 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 thems..
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sex
religion
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John Steinbeck |
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52275fb
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I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.
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John Steinbeck |
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0d52555
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I hope I'm not so small-souled as to take satisfaction in being missed.
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John Steinbeck |
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2d38613
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In these terrific Georgians we had met more than our match. They could out-eat us, out-drink us, out-dance us, out-sing us. They had the fierce gaiety of the Italians, and the physical energy of the Burgundians. Everything they did was done with flair. They were quite different from the Russians we had met, and it is easy to see why they are so admired by the citizens of the other Soviet republics. Their energy not only survives but fattens..
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John Steinbeck |
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d207741
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Ah!' said Lee. 'I've wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfer..
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John Steinbeck |
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d865db1
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She was a very small girl with a face as lovely and fresh as her son's face--a very small girl. Most of the time she knew she was smarter and prettier than anyone else. But now and then a lonely fear would fall upon her so that she seemed surrounded by a tree-tall forest of enemies. Then every thought and word and look was aimed to hurt her, and she had no place to run and no place to hide. And she would cry in panic because there was no es..
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John Steinbeck |
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3617c2e
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A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone each winter for eight months at a stretch in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Lake Tahoe. I was the caretaker on a summer estate during the winter months when it was snowed in. And I made some observations then. As time went on I found that my reactions thickened. Ordinarily I am a whistler. I stopped whistling. I stopped conversing with my dogs..
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winter
solitude
loneliness
travels-with-charley
companionship
isolation
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John Steinbeck |
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292ef93
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They say a clean cut heals soonest. There's nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can't see or hear or touch a man, it's best to let him go
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John Steinbeck |
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a767942
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If then this tendency toward collectivization is a mutation there is no reason to suppose it is for the better. It is a rule in paleontology that ornamentation and complication precede extinction. And our mutation, of which the assembly line, the collective farm, the mechanized army, and the mass production of food are evidences or even symptoms, might well correspond to the thickening armor of the great reptiles--a tendency that can end on..
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John Steinbeck |
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86b5f85
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Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul? Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses..
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John Steinbeck |
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29faf8f
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The Lord in his wisdom gave money to very curious people, perhaps because they'd starve without. -Liza
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John Steinbeck |
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8968c0a
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Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite.... A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then--the glory--so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose,..
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John Steinbeck |
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a337f03
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It gives a fella relief to tell, but it jus' spreads out his sin.
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sin
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John Steinbeck |
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5185815
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You're jest one person, an' they's a lot of other folks. You git to your proper place. I knowed people built theirself up with sin till they figgered they was big mean shucks in the sight a the Lord. You ain't big enough or mean enough to worry God much.
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John Steinbeck |
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f013fc7
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He put on a little knapsack and he walked through Indiana and Kentucky and North Carolina and Georgia clear to Florida. He walked among farmers and mountain people, among swamp people and fishermen. And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country. Because he loved true things he tried to explain. He said he was nervous and besides he wanted to see the country, smell the ground and look at grass and birds and trees, t..
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John Steinbeck |
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ea398bc
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That was a time when a man had the right to be burried by his own son an' a son had the right to burry his own father.
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John Steinbeck |
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c3fbcc7
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Someone's got to do these things,' he said sullenly. 'Or else fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.
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John Steinbeck |
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96dc7ce
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You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
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John Steinbeck |