But 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. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.


John Steinbeck

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It’s all fine to say, “Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget�...
JOHN STEINBECK
I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or...
JOHN STEINBECK
But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody to be near him
JOHN STEINBECK
When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls ...
JOHN STEINBECK
It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness,...
JOHN STEINBECK
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a ton...
JOHN STEINBECK
In all the mad incongruity, the turgid stultiloquy of life, I felt, at least, securely anchored to m...
JOHN STEINBECK
A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone e...
JOHN STEINBECK
...You are a little boy. You want the moon to drink from as a golden cup; and so, it is very likely ...
JOHN STEINBECK
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you
control it.
JOHN STEINBECK
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for i...
JOHN STEINBECK
He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.
JOHN STEINBECK
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Intention, good or bad, is not enough.
JOHN STEINBECK
I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.
JOHN STEINBECK
I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.
JOHN STEINBECK
All of them had a restlessness in common.
JOHN STEINBECK
Look now -- in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be co...
JOHN STEINBECK
And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country.
Because he loved true t...
JOHN STEINBECK
Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that ...
JOHN STEINBECK
For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be bet...
JOHN STEINBECK
Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world.
JOHN STEINBECK
Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked.
'I d...
JOHN STEINBECK
I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never really seen.
JOHN STEINBECK
To the stars, on the wings of a pig.
JOHN STEINBECK
The ways of sin are curious . . . I guess if a man had to shuck off everything he had, inside and ou...
JOHN STEINBECK
The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, dow...
JOHN STEINBECK
...Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides whit...
JOHN STEINBECK
He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give ...
JOHN STEINBECK
No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.
JOHN STEINBECK
In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.
JOHN STEINBECK
You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let your...
JOHN STEINBECK
Why do men like me want sons?" he wondered. "It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls...
JOHN STEINBECK
To be alive at all is to have scars.
JOHN STEINBECK
If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen . . . A great lasting story is about ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't l...
JOHN STEINBECK
I was mean life a wolf. Now i'm mean like a weasel. When you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an'...
JOHN STEINBECK
When you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when...
JOHN STEINBECK
But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that...
JOHN STEINBECK
Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are ...
JOHN STEINBECK
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing...
JOHN STEINBECK
Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mi...
JOHN STEINBECK
No one who is young is ever going to be old.
JOHN STEINBECK
..it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world...It makes you mean, and violent, an...
JOHN STEINBECK
It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.
JOHN STEINBECK
Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.
JOHN STEINBECK
A man without words is a man without thought.
JOHN STEINBECK
When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else...
JOHN STEINBECK
But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thin...
JOHN STEINBECK
A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.
JOHN STEINBECK
People like you to be something, preferably what they are.
JOHN STEINBECK