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.


John Steinbeck

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I have written about some truly great writers - John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and William Faulkner. ...
JAY PARINI
It's not spit out by some computer. I have objective numbers like that, but my pencil is my coaching...
JOE JURASZEK
He brought his lips to my ear. "I would have been gentle with you, though." I shuddered as I closed ...
SARAH J. MAAS
Lull me with your lullabies.. Serenade me with your souls. Make me dance with symphonies.. Do jazz w...
KIM JOHN A. AGUIRRE
We make provisions for this life as if it were never to have an end, and for the other life as thoug...
JOSEPH ADDISON
I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
The answer isn't more time but a greater awareness of the time we have.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President h...
JOHN STEINBECK
When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. ...
OSCAR NIEMEYER
Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolb...
CHARLES DARWIN
If I were John Lennon
And my feelings for you grew,
I'd have left The Beatles
To spen...
LISA SWERLING
Darling,
You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I ...
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER
A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ. -John Steinbeck.
JOHN STEINBECK
I have a website because it's an interesting tool, very - and quite unexpectedly - useful for my...
JOHN HOWE
During the past few years I have avoided tiring myself and losing my breath. I must take care of my ...
THICH NHAT HANH
To John I owed great obligation; but John, unhappily, thought fit to publish it to all the nation: S...
MATTHEW PRIOR
To John I owed great obligation: But John unhandsomely thought fit To publish it to all the na...
ALEXANDER POPE
I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel
HARUKI MURAKAMI
With the military, you make really very good friends and you have them for a very long time. That's ...
FELECIA CHAVEZ
We've been doing this since we were 9 or 10 years old, ... We've been doing this for a very long tim...
KELLY ROWLAND
I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic
AUDRE LORDE
Strong black women have been an integral part of Jamaican society for a very long time, but never in...
MARLON HILL
I think there's some real fundamental support for the Governor, ... He's as tough as an old rope, an...
BILL STONE
They have destroyed my life, ... My hand swelled up. My hands were as big as boxing gloves. My finge...
EDWARD ANTHONY
Wish me everything that you can wish for the woman you dearly love, and I have as good as got it, Jo...
CHARLES DICKENS
...Okay... probably now you have read all my books up to now..., you have check out everything what ...
DEYTH BANGER
I suddenly had an idea of how adults can hold on to a feeling for very long periods of time, long af...
REIF LARSEN
As you sort of go through life, you realize it's very rare to have a relationship as an actor with a...
BRUCE PALTROW
I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter...
BLAISE PASCAL
Maybe that's what praying is all about. Maybe it's not just asking God to forgive us for bad things ...
SARAH DARER LITTMAN
I was very flattered ... but as long as the Trinity community will have me, I'll consider this my ho...
BOB BEATTY
It takes long practice, yes. You have to work. Did you think you could snap your fingers, and have i...
PHILIP PULLMAN
My partners (and I) have wanted to do this for a long time.
GARY GATTIS
Why be greedy when you can have it all.
ANTHONY T. HINCKS
I have gotten everything from a one-page letter written in pencil to a 50-page computer generated ma...
RON PEARSON
I have to tell you I never in my life anticipated getting this old, this fast. It seems as if I were...
BEN STEIN
I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but you...
ALEC GUINNESS
First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work...
JAMES MCBRIDE
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."

...
BLAISE PASCAL
I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and I forget when you're close to me, I forget...
CASSANDRA CLARE
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
MARK TWAIN
I would like to play an average guy. I would have loved to play opposite John Candy in a movie. That...
WARWICK DAVIS
I actively avoided responsibility for as long as I possibly could.
DAVID WALTON
I have now been an officer in this Church for a very long time. I am an old man who cannot deny the ...
GORDON B. HINCKLEY
All these tales of people sitting down and composing symphonies just as though they were writing a l...
GEORGE GERSHWIN
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a...
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW
I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We...
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
I love you, Savannah, and I always will," I breathed. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to...
NICHOLAS SPARKS
People have very good intentions. But this will be going on for months. It is very heart-wrenching a...
JANE LARSON
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, treat everything as if it were a nail.
ABRAHAM MASLOW
I describe myself as a big kid with an old soul, I'm very playful whimsical, but I definitely ha...
JIDENNA
My son John was just under a year old when I collapsed with a life-threatening kidney disease. The s...
MARY MANIN MORRISSEY
So many people have approached me and said, 'Can I do a musical of John,' ... It's a very simple ide...
YOKO ONO
I think retirement's for old people. I'm still in the business, thank you. I have a young ch...
HARRISON FORD
This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated m...
RON CHERNOW
As long as I have the talent and there's a demand for the old Chinese man - whether he's a p...
JAMES HONG
I asked when I bought my home if I could have a pickup truck, and they said it was OK as long as it ...
BOB HOFFMAN
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as t...
HELEN KELLER
An event like the baseball classic is very important for baseball. This time of year is a very impor...
HIDEKI MATSUI
Some people think it's an easy gig working as an extra, but you often have to stay very concentr...
GINA BELLMAN
I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my ...
HERMANN HESSE
All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense.
FRANçOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life. I can only be joyfu...
HANS BOS
When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it does...
EDITH WHARTON
I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.' A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look c...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN
All of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have ...
CHRISTIAN BALE
This is a pretty powerful tool. Backup software does not keep historical information like this and o...
DIANNE MCADAM
You were supposed to have hope, right? You were supposed to respect its power and hold on. And so I ...
DEB CALETTI
The way the Establishment deals with people like me is to ignore them. When you become unignorable, ...
HEATHER BROOKE
I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
If I had had wo...
MADELINE MILLER
Six hundred years is an awfully long time, Ever. So long it's impossible for either of us to imagine...
ALYSON NOEL
This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip—I keep trying to read it. I have gone...
LYDIA DAVIS
Tana. In all my long life, though there were many times I prayed for it, no one has ever saved me. N...
HOLLY BLACK
It occurred to me in my junior year of high school. I got my first letter from a big college. I stil...
BO JACKSON
Map out your future - but do it in pencil. The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth t...
JON BON JOVI
I get heartbroken flying into L.A. It's just this feeling of unspecific loss. Can you imagine wh...
EDWARD NORTON
But you just have to take it in stride. As long as I have a job and I've got my babies and we're hea...
ARNELL BRITT
I'm never proud of my old work. I always feel as though my skills have since improved.
CRISS JAMI
I kept giving up runs. It was, for sure, a rough road and a very rocky one. I enjoyed my time there,...
BILLY KOCH
Robert Morris is a smaller team and we could have used John, but I needed to make sure all my player...
DAVE CALLOWAY
My tunnel vision work ethic is very hard to come by, I believe. I have had an unwavering faith in my...
TINASHE
A relationship takes time, and you really have to work hard at it. I'm devoted to my profession,...
MORAN ATIAS
I'm a big fan of the show and John Wells, and we have been trying to work together for a long time,
JOHN STAMOS
I have known many an instance of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name, but this is...
HENRY WARD BEECHER
I've been around a long time. I don't have the same confidence I used to have, but I keep on trying....
BRUNO ANTONELLI
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
BLAISE PASCAL
I've been a fashion model for 15 years and designing is just an extension of my career. I still ...
ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO
Everyone else would have danced around the truth for too long a time. Lirah, was able to slap them i...
MELINA MARCHETTA
I started to ride when I was very young, and it's a sport I have practised for a very long time.
CHARLOTTE CASIRAGHI
I hope to be with you as a writer for a very long time, and I hope that you will enjoy reading my wo...
GUY JOHNSON
I consider the piano my 'main' instrument and have been playing for as long as I can remembe...
IAN MACKAYE
We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or e...
DAVID BRIN
My ship – the Demeter, was a star-liner operated by the Red Star Line. I say ‘was’ because of ...
CHRISTINA ENGELA
You have to think of the roads as an essential tool for bringing the country back to normal.
CAROLINE CHAUMONT
I enjoy my John Deere tractor quite a lot. It's a tool that I must use to keep Mother Nature at ...
LES CLAYPOOL
you weren't mine to begin with.
IAIN S. THOMAS
My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and abandoned, as such, altogethe...
CHARLES DICKENS
I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.
BLAISE PASCAL

More John Steinbeck

The President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else. We subject him and ...
JOHN STEINBECK
How can we live without our lives? How will we know its us without our past?
JOHN STEINBECK
Lord, how the day passes! It is like a life, so quickly when we don't watch it, and so slowly if we ...
JOHN STEINBECK
To finish is a sadness to a writer - a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. Bu...
JOHN STEINBECK
Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals.
JOHN STEINBECK
I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.
JOHN STEINBECK
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mi...
JOHN STEINBECK
No one wants advice -- only corroboration. - The Winter of Our Discontent.
JOHN STEINBECK
This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a do...
JOHN STEINBECK
Texas is not a state -- it's a state of mind.
JOHN STEINBECK
No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like hi...
JOHN STEINBECK
So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a ...
JOHN STEINBECK
I've lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.
JOHN STEINBECK
The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more import...
JOHN STEINBECK
A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength. ... When a...
JOHN STEINBECK
It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness,...
JOHN STEINBECK
A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tappin...
JOHN STEINBECK
This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the mac...
JOHN STEINBECK
Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.
JOHN STEINBECK
Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.
JOHN STEINBECK
Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..
JOHN STEINBECK
But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the mo...
JOHN STEINBECK
Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man we...
JOHN STEINBECK
Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.
JOHN STEINBECK
The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horri...
JOHN STEINBECK
Lennie rolled off the bunk and stood up, and the two of them started for the door. Just as they reac...
JOHN STEINBECK
I seen it over an' over—a guy talkin' to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't h...
JOHN STEINBECK
As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sou...
JOHN STEINBECK
They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his he...
JOHN STEINBECK
I see hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches with their bindles on their back an�...
JOHN STEINBECK
Lennie said quietly, "It ain't no lie. We're gonna do it. Gonna get a little place an' live on the f...
JOHN STEINBECK
Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hi...
JOHN STEINBECK
A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swa...
JOHN STEINBECK
Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. "I had enough," he said coldly. "You got no rights comi...
JOHN STEINBECK
Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your inter...
JOHN STEINBECK
At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side win...
JOHN STEINBECK
I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They...
JOHN STEINBECK
I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.
JOHN STEINBECK
Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to.
JOHN STEINBECK
Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now."
"Sure right now. I gotta. We gotta.
JOHN STEINBECK
George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many tim...
JOHN STEINBECK
In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you un...
JOHN STEINBECK
Ain’t many guys travel around together,” he mused. “I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in t...
JOHN STEINBECK
I can still tend the rabbits, George? I didn't mean no harm, George.
JOHN STEINBECK
We could live offa the fatta the lan'.
JOHN STEINBECK
We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not.
JOHN STEINBECK
Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobod...
JOHN STEINBECK
Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em.
JOHN STEINBECK
His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Guy don't need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus' works the other way around...
JOHN STEINBECK
A guy needs somebody―to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no differe...
JOHN STEINBECK
As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sou...
JOHN STEINBECK
All great and precious things are lonely.
JOHN STEINBECK
Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.
JOHN STEINBECK
I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
JOHN STEINBECK
There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out wh...
JOHN STEINBECK
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing...
JOHN STEINBECK
Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up th...
JOHN STEINBECK
When the time for recognition of service to the nation in wartime comes to be considered, Bob Hope s...
JOHN STEINBECK
No one wants advice -- only corroboration.
JOHN STEINBECK
The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best...
JOHN STEINBECK
Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the fiel...
JOHN STEINBECK
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that...
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
The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smo...
JOHN STEINBECK
The film of evening light made the red earth lucent, so that its dimensions were deepened, so that a...
JOHN STEINBECK
I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedicati...
JOHN STEINBECK
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
JOHN STEINBECK
Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventual...
JOHN STEINBECK
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the com...
JOHN STEINBECK
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced tha...
JOHN STEINBECK
We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient met...
JOHN STEINBECK
A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ. -John Steinbeck.
JOHN STEINBECK
Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be p...
JOHN STEINBECK
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing...
JOHN STEINBECK
It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.
JOHN STEINBECK
And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.
JOHN STEINBECK
I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her...
JOHN STEINBECK
I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
JOHN STEINBECK
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having claw...
JOHN STEINBECK
No-one wants advice only corroboration.
JOHN STEINBECK
An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacce...
JOHN STEINBECK
We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar...
JOHN STEINBECK
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a do...
JOHN STEINBECK
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convin...
JOHN STEINBECK
These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well...
JOHN STEINBECK
A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.
JOHN STEINBECK
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
JOHN STEINBECK
A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion...
JOHN STEINBECK
Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.
JOHN STEINBECK
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
JOHN STEINBECK
The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
JOHN STEINBECK
The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must ...
JOHN STEINBECK
We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.
JOHN STEINBECK
Time is the only critic without ambition.
JOHN STEINBECK
It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we wo...
JOHN STEINBECK
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
JOHN STEINBECK
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.
JOHN STEINBECK
It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should reme...
JOHN STEINBECK
No one wants advice - only corroboration.
JOHN STEINBECK
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
JOHN STEINBECK
In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the ...
JOHN STEINBECK
One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.
JOHN STEINBECK
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that...
JOHN STEINBECK
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes l...
JOHN STEINBECK
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.
JOHN STEINBECK
Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility...
JOHN STEINBECK
Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bit...
JOHN STEINBECK
When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults ...
JOHN STEINBECK
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to be...
JOHN STEINBECK
A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.
An all plans, safeguards, policies and coerc...
JOHN STEINBECK
I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments
JOHN STEINBECK
I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pr...
JOHN STEINBECK
You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
JOHN STEINBECK
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are...
JOHN STEINBECK
A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a d...
JOHN STEINBECK
Anything that just costs money is cheap.
JOHN STEINBECK
And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen a...
JOHN STEINBECK
Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made s...
JOHN STEINBECK
How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President h...
JOHN STEINBECK
...and it is generally understood that a party hardly ever goes the way it is planned or intended. T...
JOHN STEINBECK
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
JOHN STEINBECK
Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.
JOHN STEINBECK
He's got a can up there,' Richard said.
JOHN STEINBECK
Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you....
JOHN STEINBECK
The fields were fruitful and starving men moved on the roads. The granaries were full and the childr...
JOHN STEINBECK
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that ma...
JOHN STEINBECK
Once I traveled about in an old bakery wagon, double-doored rattler with a mattress on the floor, I ...
JOHN STEINBECK
I know this--a man got to do what he got to do.
JOHN STEINBECK
In the hearts and minds of the people, the grapes of wrath were growing heavy for the vintage.
JOHN STEINBECK
It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.
JOHN STEINBECK
It doesn't matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can't understand Cathy, bu...
JOHN STEINBECK
All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.
JOHN STEINBECK
No one wants advice, only collaboration.
JOHN STEINBECK
Man is the only kind of varmint who sets his own trap, baits it, then steps on it.
JOHN STEINBECK
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes l...
JOHN STEINBECK
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
JOHN STEINBECK
I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closel...
JOHN STEINBECK
The impulse of the American woman to geld her husband and castrate her sons is very strong.
JOHN STEINBECK
And her eyes were on the highway, where life whizzed by.
JOHN STEINBECK
I guess this personal hide-and-seek is not unusual. And some people are 'it' all their lives - hopel...
JOHN STEINBECK
Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of th...
JOHN STEINBECK
I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.
JOHN STEINBECK
I guess there are never enough books.
JOHN STEINBECK
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