Quotes from John Steinbeck

The camera need not be a cold mechanical device. Like the pen, it is as good as the man who uses it. It can be the extension of mind and heart.

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

One man was so mad at me that he ended his letter, "Beware. You will never get out of this world alive."

When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.

As for the picture — I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

What you undoubtedly want is about two paragraphs of facts. I've forgotten so many of the facts. I don't remember what is true and what might have been true... As for the picture — I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

I have thought that men and women should never come together except in bed. There is the only place where their natural hatred of each other is not so apparent.

The difficulty of course is that I like women. It is only wives I am in trouble with.

Misfortune is a fact of nature acceptable to women, especially when it falls on other women.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

The last clear definite function of man — muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need — this is man.

"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."

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

If we could learn even a little to like ourselves, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away.

We can shoot rockets into space but we can't cure anger or discontent.

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world

If I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an' no trouble.

Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.

The craft of writing is the art of penetrating other minds with the figures that are in your own mind.

The power of an attitude is amazing

You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk.

My whole work drive has been aimed at making people understand each other. . .

Just set one day's work in front of the last day's work. That's the way it comes out. And that's the only way it does.