Quotes from John Steinbeck

But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars." Lee's eyes shone. "You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.

Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain tittle to building lots.

The fool supply was controlled...

In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind--but he must get there first.

I ain't sleepin'. I got too much to puzzle with.

You're jest one person, an' they's a lot of other folks. You git to your proper place. I knowed people built theirself up with sin till they figgered they was big mean shucks in the sight a the Lord. You ain't big enough or mean enough to worry God much.

I ain't gonna try to teach 'em nothin'. I'm gonna try to learn.

The medical profession is unconsciously irritated by lay knowledge.

It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me, that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to man.

I seen too many you guys. If you had two bits in the worl', why you'd be in gettin' two shots of corn with it and suckin' the bottom of the glass.

By whipping himself he protected himself against whipping by someone else.

But to find where you are going, you must know where you are, and I didn't.

The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts will do the same thing in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in a path or a breath caught at the sight of a pretty girl or a finger nail nicked in the garden soil.

Prayer never brought in no side-meat. Takes a shoat to bring in pork.

You're not buying only junk, you're buying junked lives. And more - you'll see - you're buying bitterness.

I don't ever drink alone. It's not much fun. And I don't think I will until I am an alcoholic.

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 foresee nor understand. And man has met and defeated every obstacle, every enemy except one. He cannot win over himself. How mankind hates himself.

The Pacific is my home ocean; I knew it first, grew up on its shore, collected marine animals along the coast. I know its moods, its color, its nature.

Puts a weight on ya. Goin' out lookin' for somepin you know you ain't gonna find.

And he didn't get tired or sleepy, for the beauty burned in him like fire.

Looks kinda scrummy

The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It ... tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, ... crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live ... In the winter, it becomes a torrent, ... and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in.

There seemed to be no cure for loneliness save only being alone.

Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody—to be near him." He whined, "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick.