John Steinbeck Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

• A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

  John Steinbeck

  Loneliness, Soul, Literature

• No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Literature, Being The Best

  John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.64, Penguin

• I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

  John Steinbeck

  Photography, Hate, Cameras

  John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.65, Penguin

• One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.

  John Steinbeck

  Pain, Rain, Fall

  John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.1186, Penguin UK

• Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

  John Steinbeck

  Change, Men, Wind

  John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.57, Penguin

• I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

  John Steinbeck

  Believe, Men, Dedication

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.146, Penguin

• The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

  John Steinbeck

  Powerful, Believe, Writing

  The New York Times, June 02, 1969.

• Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor.

  John Steinbeck

  Kings, Hero, Writing

  John Steinbeck (1990). “Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath”, p.21, Penguin

• The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

  John Steinbeck

  Stupid, Writing, Discipline

  John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.729, Penguin UK

• In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

  John Steinbeck

  Loneliness, Trying, Literature

  John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.8, Penguin

• Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Bait, Literature

  John Steinbeck (2008). “Sweet Thursday”, p.214, Penguin

• So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda.

  John Steinbeck

  Coffee, Pride, Two

  Letter on August 20, 1947. "Steinbeck: A Life in Letters", 1976.

• It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

  John Steinbeck

  Nature, Men, Fishing

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

• 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.

  John Steinbeck

  Sick, Literature, Earth

  "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Fourth Series". Book edited by George Plimpton. Chapter "On Intent", 1977.

• The impulse of the American woman to geld her husband and castrate her sons is very strong.

  John Steinbeck

  Strong, Husband, Son

  John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.294, Penguin

• Ever'body's askin' that. "What we comin' to?" Seems to me we don't never come to nothin'. Always on the way.

  John Steinbeck

  Literature, Body, Way

  John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.100, Hamilton Books

• Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Play, Giving

  "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Fourth Series". Book edited by George Plimpton. Chapter "On Critics", 1977.

• Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

  John Steinbeck

  Work, Men, Wrath

  Grapes of Wrath (1939) ch. 14

• 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.

  John Steinbeck

  Children, Thinking, Joy

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.25, Penguin

• 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. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species. --speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962

  John Steinbeck

  Responsibility, Games, Cities

  John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.1250, Penguin UK

• The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

  John Steinbeck

  War, Believe, Heart

  John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.146, Penguin

• 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

  Long, Tools, Literature

  "Writers at Work". Book edited by George Plimpton, 1977.

• It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

  John Steinbeck

  Responsibility, Thinking, Awards

  William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck (1971). “William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill [and] John Steinbeck”

• The literature of science is filled with answers found when the question propounded had an entirely different direction and end.

  John Steinbeck

  Science, Differences, Different

  John Steinbeck (1996). “The grapes of wrath and other writings, 1936-1941”, Library of America

• 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.

  John Steinbeck

  Games, Singing, Despair

  William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck (1971). “William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill [and] John Steinbeck”

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