Travels With Charley Quotes - Page 2

• No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe

  John Steinbeck

  Silence, Tree, Feelings

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.105, Penguin

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

  John Steinbeck

  Football, War, Team

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.126, Penguin

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.

  John Steinbeck

  Eye, Sound, Ribs

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

  John Steinbeck

  Hair, Feet, Hoarse Voice

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

  60 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.

  John Steinbeck

  Country, Travel, New York

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.54, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It seems to me Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda.

  John Steinbeck

  Color, Land, Mountain

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of a human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed

  John Steinbeck

  Healing, Needs, Literature

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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.

  John Steinbeck

  Eye, Color, Silence

  84 Copy quote

• A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

  John Steinbeck

  Travel, Struggle, Journey

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

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.

  John Steinbeck

  Maturity, People, Mature

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

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

  John Steinbeck

  Freedom, Fighting, Government

  John Steinbeck (2012). “The Portable Steinbeck”, p.827, Penguin

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

  John Steinbeck

  Mother, Men, Long Ago

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.11, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me.

  John Steinbeck

  Land, America, Monsters

  John Steinbeck (2012). “Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.31, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source