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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
bdcd4c2	It was not a safe thing to lead Joe into temptation; he had no resistance to it at all.			John Steinbeck
6bb2f34	Blaisedell, the poet, had said to him, 'You love beer so much. I'll bet some day you'll go in and order a beer milk shake.' It was a simple piece of foolery but it had bothered Doc ever since. He wondered what a beer milk shake would taste like. The idea gagged him but he couldn't let it alone. It cropped up every time he had a glass of beer. Would it curdle the milk? Would you add sugar? It was like a shrimp ice cream. Once the thing got i..			John Steinbeck
ca6fbb7	There's no thing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of a postage stamp.			John Steinbeck
7b4df40	And he saw the right evening star reflected in her eyes, and he saw the black cloud reflected in her eyes.			John Steinbeck
bd3e078	But you said you did not love our father. How can you have faith in him if you didn't love him?" "Maybe that's the reason," Adam said slowly, feeling his way. "Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe--maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure--never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you lo..			John Steinbeck
dc0acdf	You're pretty full of yourself. You're marveling at the tragic spectacle of Caleb Trask--Caleb the magnificent, the unique. Caleb whose suffering should have its Homer. Did you ever think of yourself as a snot-nose kid--mean sometimes, incredibly generous sometimes? Dirty in your habits, and curiously pure in your mind. Maybe you have a little more energy than most, just energy, but outside of that you're very like all the other snot-nose k..			John Steinbeck
29e925a	At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?" Gitano shook his head slowly. "No, I walked down the Salinas Valley." The afternoon thought would not let Joey go. "Did you ever go into the big mountains back there?" The old dark eyes grew fixed, and their light turned inward on the years that were living in Gitano's head."		description	John Steinbeck
c8f15e7	There is a curious idea among unscientific men that in scientific writing there is a common plateau of perfectionism. Nothing could be more untrue. The reports of biologists are the measure, not of the science, but of the men themselves. There are as few scientific giants as any other kind. In some reports it is impossible, because of inept expression, to relate the descriptions to the living animals. In some papers collecting places are so..		writers-on-writing scientists	John Steinbeck
36db348	If on'y they didn' tell me I got to get off, why, I'd prob'y be in California right now a-eatin' grapes an a-pickin' an orange when I wanted. But them sons-a-bitches says I got to get off-an', Jesus Christ, a man can't, when he's tol' to!			John Steinbeck
37b40fc	There would come a time in our poverty when we needed a party.			John Steinbeck
07f3d57	And finally comes culture, which is entertainment, relaxation, transport out of the pain of living.			John Steinbeck
0bdf5c2	Adam Trask to Cathy: "You know about the ugliness in people. You showed me the pictures. You use all the sad, weak parts of a man, and God knows he has them." ... "But you-yes, that's right- you don't know about the rest. You don't believe I brought you the letter because I don't want your money. You don't believe I love you. And the men who come to you here with their ugliness, the men in the pictures- you don't believe those men could hav..			John Steinbeck
d415724	Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.			John Steinbeck
e2147a9	Just come,			John Steinbeck
60ab41b	He smiled at her as a man might smile at a memory. Then he went out and closed the door gently behind him. Kate sat staring at the door. Her eyes were desolate.			John Steinbeck
0d7104f	A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?			John Steinbeck
b410deb	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," said Lee, "that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to a man." "And memory." "Yes, memory. Without that, time would be unarmed ..			John Steinbeck
b75865f	Maybe his wealth was entirely in unpaid bills.			John Steinbeck
5631fbc	Dessie's friends were good and loyal but they were human, and humans love to feel good and they hate to feel bad.			John Steinbeck
c1a329c	I want to see the whole picture - as nearly as I can. I don't want to put on the blinders of 'good' and 'bad', and limit my vision. If I used the term 'good' on a thing I'd lose my license to inspect it, because there might be bad in it. Don't you see? I want to be able to look at the whole thing.			John Steinbeck
6187215	You must name a thing before you can note it on your hand drawn map.			John Steinbeck
788e974	I'd think there are degrees of greatness," Adam said. "I don't think so," said Samuel. "That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility - that hugeness - you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what rewar..			John Steinbeck
dbf5abf	Beside them, little pot-bellied men in light suits and panama hats; clean, pink men with puzzled, worried eyes, with restless eyes. Worried because formulas do not work out; hungry for security and yet sensing its disappearance from the earth. 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 rit..		men life security-fear restless	John Steinbeck
d273815	He went to his own dark house and lighted the lamps and set fire in the stove. The clock wound by Elizabeth still ticked, storing in its spring the pressure of her hand, and the wool socks she had hung to dry over the stove screen were still damp. These were vital parts of Elizabeth that were not dead yet. Joseph pondered slowly over it. Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is t..			John Steinbeck
d0ccf3a	There is no knowing how or why dread comes on a parent. Of course, many times apprehension arises when there is no reason for it at all. And it comes most often to the parents of only children, parents who have indulged in black dreams of loss.			John Steinbeck
ba8854e	How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?			John Steinbeck
50d34ea	He thought dawdling, protective thoughts, sitting under the lamp, but he knew that pretty soon his name would be called and he would have to go up before the bench with himself as judge and his own crimes as jurors. And his name was called, shrilly in his ears. His mind walked in to face the accusers: Vanity, which charged him with being ill dressed and dirty and vulgar; and Lust, slipping him the money for his whoring; Dishonesty, to make ..			John Steinbeck
2fee739	I'll tell ya one thing -- the jail house is jus' a kind a way a drivin' a guy slowly nuts. See? An' they go nuts, an' you see 'em an' hear 'em, an' pretty soon you don' know if you're nuts or not. When they get to screamin' in the night sometimes you think it's you doin' the screamin'--an' sometimes it is.			John Steinbeck
680636e	There's a passage in John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" that does a pretty good job describing California's rainfall patterns: The water came in a 30-year cycle. There would be five to six wet and wonderful years when there might be 19 to 25 inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of 12 to 16 inches of rain. And then the dry years would come ..."		rain climate weather	John Steinbeck
fccc936	The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is damned to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live. In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, a..		rivers	John Steinbeck
107c3ea	I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and so..			John Steinbeck
611d506	Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property. I g..		socialism frequently-misquoted bourgeois communists class-warfare class-struggle hypocrisy	John Steinbeck
65ed2b0	Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased. I remember a man in Salinas who in his middle years traveled to Honolulu and back, and that journey continued for the rest of his life. We could watch him in his rocking chair on his front porch, his eyes squinted, half-closed, endlessly traveling to Honolulu.		trip	John Steinbeck
620d823	Perhaps that might be the way to write this book--to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.			John Steinbeck
92b71a8	I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. 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. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and..		virtue humanity love vice	John Steinbeck
0048982	You are a little boy. You want the moon to drink from as a golden cup; and so, it is very likely that you will become a great man -- if only you remain a little child. All the world'sgreat have been little boys who wanted the moon; running and climbing, they sometimes catch a firefly. But if one grow to a man's mind, that mind must see that it cannot have the moon and would not want it if it could -- and so, it catches no fireflies.' [Merli..		great-man want-the-moon great-men maturity coming-of-age	John Steinbeck
a33c749	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'."			John Steinbeck
757387d	It was supposed that the pearl buyers were individuals acting alone, bidding against one another for the pearls the fishermen brought in. And once it had been so. But this was a wasteful method, for often, in the excitement of bidding for a fine pearl, too great a price had been paid to the fisherman. This was extravagant and not to be countenanced. Now there was only one pearl buyer with many hands, and the men who sat in their offices and..			John Steinbeck
55d136e	Not long ago, after my last trip to Russia, I had a conversation with an American very eminent in the field of politics. I asked what he read, and he replied that he studied history, sociology, politics and law. "How about fiction - novels, plays poetry?" I asked. "No," he said, "I have never had time for them. There's so much else I have to read." I said, "Sir, I have recently visited Russia for the third time and don't know how well I un..		steinbeck american-literature	John Steinbeck
01f3077	One who was born by the ocean or has associated with it cannot ever be quite content away from it for very long		travel love cortez log steinbeck ocean	John Steinbeck
235581d	You can boast about anything if it's all you have.			John Steinbeck
fcb1fd4	Two features would be with her always. Her chin was firm and her mouth was as sweet as a flower and very wide and pink. Her hazel eyes were sharp and intelligent and completely fearless.			John Steinbeck
0214b05	The house was clean, scrubbed and immaculate, curtains washed, windows polished, but all as a man does it - the ironed curtains did not hang quite straight and there were streaks on the windows and a square showed on the table when a book was moved.		men house	John Steinbeck
65119c1	Lee put his arm around the broad shoulders to comfort him. "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. The dirt is very dirty and purity is shining white. Aron, it will be over. That's not much relief to you because you don't believe it, but it's the best I can..			John Steinbeck

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