John Steinbeck Quotes - Page 11

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• 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 for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

  John Steinbeck

  Taken, Hangover, Sleep

  "Travels With Charley: In Search of America". Book by John Steinbeck, Part 1, 1962.

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  13 Copy quote

• If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it-bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn't belong there.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Thinking, Goes On

  8 Copy quote

• A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.

  John Steinbeck

  Moving, Animal, Boys

  John Steinbeck (2009). “The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.477, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

• When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.

  John Steinbeck

  Fall, Writing, Sick

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.17, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

  John Steinbeck

  Hate, Fighting, Mind

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.116, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• The misery stayed, not thought about but aching away, and sometimes I would have to ask myself, Why do I ache? Men can get used to anything, but it takes time.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Misery, Sometimes

  John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.125, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise - the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream - be set down alive?

  John Steinbeck

  Dream, Light, Quality

  John Steinbeck (1993). “Cannery Row”, p.8, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.

  John Steinbeck

  Wise, Kings, Winning

  John Steinbeck (2008). “The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.85, Penguin

  57 Copy quote

• A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination, why they never wrote about the present. This bothered me until I realized why - that a novelist wants to know how it comes out, that he can't be omnipotent writing a book about the present, particularly this one.

  John Steinbeck

  Book, Writing, Past

  John Steinbeck, Thomas Fensch (1988). “Conversations with John Steinbeck”, p.73, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  4 Copy quote

• A good writer always works at the impossible.There is another kind who pulls in his horizons, drops his mind as one lowers rifle sights.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Sight, Mind

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

  8 Copy quote

• I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer -- and what trees and seasons smelled like -- how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.

  John Steinbeck

  Summer, Memories, Flower

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.9, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.

  John Steinbeck

  Montana, Recognition, Admiration

  22 Copy quote

• And her joy was nearly like sorrow.

  John Steinbeck

  Joy, Sorrow

  John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.59, Hamilton Books

  4 Copy quote

• I have taken as much as six years to prepare a book for writing. There is such a delirium of effort in the production of a book; it's like childbirth. And, like childbirth, one forgets the pains immediately so that when you come to write another one you dare to take it up again. Some precious anesthesia sees you through.

  John Steinbeck

  Pain, Book, Taken

  John Steinbeck, Thomas Fensch (1988). “Conversations with John Steinbeck”, p.88, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  15 Copy quote

• Once Charley fell in love with a dachshund, a romance racially unsuitable, physically ridiculous, and mechanically impossible. But all these problems Charley ignored. He loved deeply and tried dogfully.

  John Steinbeck

  Romance, Dachshunds, Ridiculous

  John Steinbeck (2007). “Travels with Charley and Later Novels, 1947-1962”

  12 Copy quote

• And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.

  John Steinbeck

  Keys, San Francisco, Golden

  "America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction".

  9 Copy quote

• The camera is one of the most frightening of modern weapons, particularly to people who have been in warfare, who have been bombed and shelled for at the back of a bombing run is invariably a photograph. In the back of ruined towns, and cities, and factories, there is aerial mapping, or spy mapping, usually with a camera. Therefore the camera is a feared instrument, and a man with a camera is suspected and watched wherever he goes... In the minds of most people today the camera is the forerunner of destruction, and it is suspected, and rightly so.

  John Steinbeck

  Running, Men, Cities

  6 Copy quote

• I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one.

  John Steinbeck

  Prayer, Magic, Suffering

  John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.12, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there.

  John Steinbeck

  Guy, Cop

  "Fictional character: Tom Joad". "The Grapes of Wrath ", www.imdb.com. 1940.

  7 Copy quote

• Everyone I have ever known very well has been concerned that I would eventually starve. Probably I shall. It isn't important enough to me to be an obsession.

  John Steinbeck

  Important, Obsession, Hunger

  John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.79, Penguin UK

  8 Copy quote

• 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?

  John Steinbeck

  Reality, Men, Discovery

  John Steinbeck (2008). “The Winter of Our Discontent”, p.46, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• She wasn't happy, but then she wasn't unhappy. She wasn't anything. But I don't believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing. This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.

  John Steinbeck

  Dream, Memories, Believe

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.29, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Steinbeck

  Travel, Struggle, Journey

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.8, Penguin

  15 Copy quote

• These too are of a burning color--not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be like the color of the poppies.

  John Steinbeck

  Orange, Color, Gold

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.10, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

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