John Steinbeck quotes - page 2

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world. (John Steinbeck)
Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time. View quote
John Steinbeck
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. View quote
John Steinbeck
I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool. View quote
John Steinbeck
A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ. View quote
John Steinbeck
A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. View quote
John Steinbeck
Such is the prestige of the Nobel award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practiced it through the ages. View quote
John Steinbeck
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones. View quote
John Steinbeck
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts. View quote
John Steinbeck
Like most modern people, I don't believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it. View quote
John Steinbeck
I nearly always write just as I nearly always breathe. (John Steinbeck)
Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is--and a woman too, I guess. View quote
John Steinbeck
There's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not. View quote
John Steinbeck
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. View quote
John Steinbeck
Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk. View quote
John Steinbeck
All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal. View quote
John Steinbeck
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. View quote
John Steinbeck
And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. View quote
John Steinbeck
What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can only read a few and those perhaps not accurately. View quote
John Steinbeck
There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension. View quote
John Steinbeck
We could live offa the fatta the lan'. (John Steinbeck)
Luck, you see, brings bitter friends. View quote
John Steinbeck
It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth. View quote
John Steinbeck
For every man in the world functions to the best of his ability, and no one does less than his best, no matter what he may think about it. View quote
John Steinbeck
This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me. View quote
John Steinbeck