How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?" [...] How if you wake up in the night and know -and know the willow tree's not there? Can you live without the willow tree? Well, no, you can't. The willow tree is you - John Steinbeck
And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist-or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it. - John Steinbeck
Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different. - John Steinbeck
It's a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man's life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness. - John Steinbeck
Henry liked fun and avoided when he could any solemn or serious matter, for he confused these with sorrow. - John Steinbeck
If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. - John Steinbeck
What a joy, that literacy is no longer prima facie evidence of treason. - John Steinbeck
Man is the only kind of varmint who sets his own trap, baits it, then steps on it. - John Steinbeck
It's a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it. - John Steinbeck
No-one wants advice only corroboration. - John Steinbeck
Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad or a stimulant - John Steinbeck
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
The fields were fruitful and starving men moved on the roads. The granaries were full and the children of the poor grew up rachitic. - John Steinbeck
I know this--a man got to do what he got to do. - John Steinbeck
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. - John Steinbeck
And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way. - John Steinbeck
I know that sometimes a lie is used in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of the truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agonyof a lie is neverlost. That's a running sore - John Steinbeck
أعتقد بأن الحب لا يمكن شراؤه إلا بالحب. - John Steinbeck
Relationship Time to Aloneness." Having a companion fixes you in time and that of the present, but when the quality of aloneness settles down, past, present and future all flow together. A memory, a present event, and a forecast all equally present. - John Steinbeck
A man who writes a story is forced to put into it the best of his knowledge and the best of his feeling. The discipline of the written word punishes stupidity and dishonesty. A writer lives in awe of words for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. - John Steinbeck
Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one. If I go ahead on all of 'em, it's too much. You got to live ahead 'cause you're so young, but—it's jus' the road goin' by for me. - John Steinbeck
... you can't start with a democracy. You have to work up through stuff like tyranny and monarchy first. That way people are so relived when they get to democracy that they hang on to it. - John Steinbeck
Memory of the knife will be gone when the flesh is gone. - John Steinbeck
He had drawn a derogatory statement from George. He felt safe now. - John Steinbeck
Mr. Trask, do you think the thoughts of people suddenly become important at a given age? Do you have sharper feelings or clearer thoughts now than when you were ten? Do you see as well, hear as well, taste as vitally? - John Steinbeck
Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. - John Steinbeck
I know three things will never be believed-the true, the probable, and the logical. - John Steinbeck
There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I. - John Steinbeck
All this wondering was the weather vane on top of the building of unrest and of discontent - John Steinbeck
Most people live ninety percent in the past, seven percent in the present, and that only leaves three percent for the future. - John Steinbeck
It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thoughts or action we should remember our dying and try so to live, that our death brings no pleasure on the world. - John Steinbeck
Life is knowledge, livin it is Succes! - John Steinbeck
One can find so many pains when the rain is falling. - John Steinbeck
Smile and thank God, that you are alive today! - John Steinbeck
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. - John Steinbeck
It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better. - John Steinbeck
Look here, said Will. When a man comes to me for advice about an idea, I know he doesn’twant advice. He wants me to agree with him. And if I want to keep his friendship I tell him his idea isfine and go ahead. But I like you and you’re a friend of my family, so I’m going to stick my neck out. - John Steinbeck
We find that after years of struggle we do not take a journey, but rather a journey takes us. - John Steinbeck
It doesn't matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can't understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water? - John Steinbeck
Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person-and write to that one. - John Steinbeck
The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement."[Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech] - John Steinbeck
I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. - John Steinbeck
No one wants advice, only collaboration. - John Steinbeck
Eventlessness has no post to drape duration on. - John Steinbeck
All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal. - John Steinbeck
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals. - John Steinbeck
Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love. - John Steinbeck
I don't want advice.' 'Nobody does. It's a giver's present. - John Steinbeck
In the hearts and minds of the people, the grapes of wrath were growing heavy for the vintage. - John Steinbeck
Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. - John Steinbeck
It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. - John Steinbeck
In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. - John Steinbeck
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts. - John Steinbeck
Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms. - John Steinbeck
Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them. - John Steinbeck
If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last. - John Steinbeck
I wonder if he had a Cathy and who see was. - John Steinbeck
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power. - John Steinbeck
And is usually true of a man of one idea, [Charles] became obsessed. - John Steinbeck
... but she was also bewilderingly lonely... Abra had lost her gift for being alone. - John Steinbeck
It seems to me that man has engaged in a blind and fearful struggle out of a past he can't remember, into a future he can't forsee nor understand. And man has met and defeated every obstacle, every enemy except one. He cannot win over himself. - John Steinbeck
No - the stars are close and dear and I have joined the brotherhood of the worlds. And everything's holy - everything, even me. - John Steinbeck
And then I saw what I was to see so many times on the journey--a look of longing. "Lord! I wish I could go. - John Steinbeck
Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it. - John Steinbeck