John Steinbeck quote: "In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love."

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

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love.

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John Steinbeck

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love.

John Steinbeck

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