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9aa21be
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You got a God. Don't make no difference if you don' know what he looks like.
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god
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John Steinbeck |
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41a92aa
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Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.
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perseverance
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John Steinbeck |
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6055768
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They's times when how you feel got to be kep' to yourself.
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John Steinbeck |
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122db7f
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For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.
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John Steinbeck |
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e3bfd7c
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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 a..
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story
good
john-steinbeck
evil
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John Steinbeck |
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bf7f218
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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, to savor the country, and there was no other way to do it save on foot. And people didn't like him for telling the truth. They scowled, or shook and tapped their heads, they laughed as though they kne..
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John Steinbeck |
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3199737
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Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments.
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John Steinbeck |
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31ea2e2
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We all have that heritage, no matter what old land our fathers left. All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed - selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful - we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic - and do you know of any o..
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steinbeck
eden
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John Steinbeck |
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d7208e4
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I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin' to fight all the time. . . 'Course Lennie's a God damn nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin' around with a guy an' you can't get rid of him.
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loneliness
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John Steinbeck |
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b0b8ea7
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The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size.
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ownership
capitalism
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John Steinbeck |
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02a6cdb
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What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.
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sex
monster
sexuality
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John Steinbeck |
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7c3ffde
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But 'Thou mayest!'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win
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John Steinbeck |
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9c44fb4
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For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?
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John Steinbeck |
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b783a65
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Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, b..
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John Steinbeck |
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b4decd5
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The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24
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John Steinbeck |
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406cae9
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Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.
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John Steinbeck |
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b86a8c8
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My father said she was a strong woman, and I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is almost indestructible.
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John Steinbeck |
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cc1ff55
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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, and came up with the book all over his face and hands
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John Steinbeck |
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aad7110
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For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.
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John Steinbeck |
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ef34730
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A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it.
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John Steinbeck |
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34c8eb0
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The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental.
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John Steinbeck |
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6a57fcd
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Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.
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John Steinbeck |
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9b2a540
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Whenever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there . . . . I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'-I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build-why, I'll be there." Tom Joad" --
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John Steinbeck |
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7462cfd
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If you're in trouble or hurt or need-go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help-the only ones.
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John Steinbeck |
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74f70e8
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If you want to keep a friend, never test him.
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John Steinbeck |
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d3da4dd
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For how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.
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John Steinbeck |
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dfc82b0
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It was deeply a part of Lee's kindness and understanding that man's right to kill himself is inviolable, but sometimes a friend can make it unnecessary
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suicide
spirituality
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John Steinbeck |
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1274a0e
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It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be loved without satiety.
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John Steinbeck |
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ad92af1
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Are cats strange animals or do they so resemble us that we find them curious as we do monkeys?
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John Steinbeck |
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a0074a5
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Like most modern people, I don't believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it.
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John Steinbeck |
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ef591cd
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Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.
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waking-up
morning
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John Steinbeck |
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e9147d0
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it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable. This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a St. Francis, a Roger Ba..
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John Steinbeck |
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050622c
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I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.
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John Steinbeck |
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8d0de89
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Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.
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John Steinbeck |
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3a8156a
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It is argued that because they believed thoroughly in a just, moral God they could put there faith there and let the smaller insecurities take care of themselves. But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potential moral units- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have ..
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individuality
strength
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John Steinbeck |
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13d66f5
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You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.
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normalcy
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John Steinbeck |
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cc84f6f
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He] fell right into the oldest conviction in the world-- that the girl you are in love with can't possibly be anything but true and honest.
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John Steinbeck |
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86553d2
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Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refu..
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the-grapes-of-wrath
john-steinbeck
land
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John Steinbeck |
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9185564
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At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.
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John Steinbeck |
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bdd5d24
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So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report only a weary evening world.
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John Steinbeck |
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d72e882
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The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.
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John Steinbeck |
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f859ad8
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It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it and it's usually crucifixion.
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John Steinbeck |
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45f6459
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Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and dev..
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John Steinbeck |
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b706ed4
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I am 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 memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.
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on-writing
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John Steinbeck |