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d1e16a2
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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
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John Steinbeck |
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5727c2d
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A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed f..
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living-well
manhood
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John Steinbeck |
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1e0c74c
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Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn't successful he's big with his property. That is so.' 'But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't ta..
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ownership
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John Steinbeck |
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579c8b2
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I think the 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 suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar - if he is financially fortunate.
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story
writer
john-steinbeck
lie
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John Steinbeck |
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6e59899
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Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.
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people
gray
observational
vitality
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John Steinbeck |
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2f84ced
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You know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future.
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John Steinbeck |
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28b3b25
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He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see?
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John Steinbeck |
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c6fe613
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A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes reality along with other realities--never to be destroyed but easily to be attacked.
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John Steinbeck |
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727d6cf
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Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared.[...]It's slow. It rots out your guts.
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John Steinbeck |
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440556e
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She knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near.
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John Steinbeck |
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13fdc02
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Do you take pride in your hurt?' Samuel asked. 'Does it make you seem large and tragic? . . . Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience . . . there's all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow?
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John Steinbeck |
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5638454
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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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7ff023a
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Two gallons is a great deal of wine, even for two paisanos. Spiritually the jugs maybe graduated thus: Just below the shoulder of the first bottle, serious and concentrated conversation. Two inches farther down, sweetly sad memory. Three inches more, thoughts of old and satisfactory loves. An inch, thoughts of bitter loves. Bottom of the first jug, general and undirected sadness. Shoulder of the second jug, black, unholy despondency. Two fi..
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John Steinbeck |
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4ad9b6b
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Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.
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John Steinbeck |
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7e110e4
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He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.
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John Steinbeck |
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6b77c2b
|
A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn't say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn't like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn't shave.
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truth
shaving
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John Steinbeck |
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78ac464
|
But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.
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John Steinbeck |
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54944c4
|
American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash--all of them--surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered in rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.
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rubbish
trash
cities
waste
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John Steinbeck |
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50b3c85
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But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units -- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even ..
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self-trust
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John Steinbeck |
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f396fe6
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If a man ordered a beer milkshake he'd better do it in a town where he wasn't known.
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reputation
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John Steinbeck |
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ead46b1
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Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.
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John Steinbeck |
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392c1e5
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Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. "I had enough," he said coldly. "You got no rights comin' in a colored man's room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus' get out, an' get out quick. If you don't, I'm gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more." She turned on him in scorn. "Listen, Nigger," she said. "You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?" Crooks stared helplessly at her..
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John Steinbeck |
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1668349
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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 half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god, and Jua..
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John Steinbeck |
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9454a78
|
Again it might have been the American tendency in travel. One goes, not so much to see but to tell afterward.
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John Steinbeck |
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4918b15
|
Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.
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John Steinbeck |
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a4ac9b8
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Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.
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money
the-winter-of-our-discontent
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John Steinbeck |
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07413ee
|
Says he foun' he jus' got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain't no good, 'cause his little piece of a soul wasn't no good 'less it was with the rest, an' was whole.
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John Steinbeck |
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9df280a
|
Lennie said quietly, "It ain't no lie. We're gonna do it. Gonna get a little place an' live on the fatta the lan'."
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John Steinbeck |
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46b7028
|
I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully, it goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble.
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John Steinbeck |
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153998b
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Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed.
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writing
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John Steinbeck |
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052df2c
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This you may say of man - when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.
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life
inspirational
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John Steinbeck |
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4832c6c
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He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.
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John Steinbeck |
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25c900e
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A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shadows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically.
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John Steinbeck |
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8b2bd79
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Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money.
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John Steinbeck |
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e287df6
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I see hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out there. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody never get..
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John Steinbeck |
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bae8799
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Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him.
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John Steinbeck |
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90e8274
|
Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over...
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John Steinbeck |
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059bd3c
|
Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.
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John Steinbeck |
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dd3627a
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I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.
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John Steinbeck |
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1cbedc1
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The flies have conquered the flypaper.
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John Steinbeck |
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d87d2e0
|
It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.
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John Steinbeck |
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bcf81b1
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Regarding "thou mayest": And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected."
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John Steinbeck |
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0f89b4c
|
A day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cates, dogs, butterflies and people.
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John Steinbeck |
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7de4e3d
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Nearly everybody has his box of secret pain, shared with no one.
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John Steinbeck |