Quotes from John Steinbeck

She had not prayed directly for the recovery of the baby - she had prayed that they might find a pearl with which to hire the doctor to cure the baby, for the minds of people are as unsubstantial as the mirage of the Gulf.

For some reason he remembered the Mexican name for carnations. Somebody must have told him when he was a kid. They were called Nails of Love ---and marigolds , the Nails of Death. It was a word lie nails---claveles. Maybe he'd better put marigolds on his mothers grave.

In a bitter night, a mustard night that was last night, a good thought came and the dark was sweetened when the day sat down. And this thought went from evening star to the late dipper on the edge of the first light -- that our betters spoke of.

Tommy, I got to thinkin' an' dreamin' an' wonderin'. They say there's a hun'erd thousand of us shoved out. If we was all mad the same way, Tommy—they wouldn't hunt nobody down—'' She stopped.

Smiled with amusement at the myths of these country boys.

Privately there were some things in Heaven of which she did not quite approve. There was too much singing, and she didn't see how even the Elect could survive for very long the celestial laziness which was promised. She would find something to do in Heaven.

Fella can get so he misses the noise of a saw mill

Tom grinned. "It don't take no nerve to do somepin when there ain't nothin' else you can do. Well, thanks. We'll drag on." And he got in the truck and moved away.

She started for the door, and when she reached it, she turned about. I'm learnin' one thing good, she said. Learnin' it all a time, ever' day. If you're in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help—the only ones.

Si uno tiene un tiro de caballos no pone el grito en el cielo si los tiene que alimentar cuando no están trabajando. Pero si uno tiene hombres trabajando para él, le importa un comino. Los caballos valen mucho más que los hombres.

I ain't never done nothin' that wasn't part sin.

Out of the long tunnels of his eyes Adam saw his half-brother Charles as a bright being of another species, gifted with muscle and bone, speed and alertness, quite on a different plane, to be admired as one admires the sleek lazy danger of a black leopard, not by any chance to be compared with one's self.

Saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation—a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something.

And the owners not only did not work the farms any more, many of them had never seen the farms they owned.

You know that a soldier is the most holy of all humans because he is the most tested—most tested of all. I'll try to tell you. Look now—in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man.

I wonder about people who say they haven't time to think. For myself, I can double think. I find that weighing vegetables, passing the time of day with customers, fighting or loving Mary, coping with the children-- none of these prevents a second and continuing layer of thinking, wondering, conjecturing. Surely this must be true of everyone. Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.

While the churches, bringing the sweet smell of piety for the soul, came in prancing and farting like brewery horses in bock-beer time, the sister evangelism, with release and joy for the body, crept in silently and grayly, with its head bowed and its face covered.

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

it would no more have occurred to Adam to confide in his brother—to tell him the hunger, the gray dreams, the plans and silent pleasures that lay at the back of the tunneled eyes—than to share his thoughts with a lovely tree or a pheasant in flight.

I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.

Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor. Pray God some day a kid can eat.

Don't worry yourself, Rosasharn. Take your breath in when you need it, an' let it go when you need to.

Samuel said, "One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now—why, you can't find all the cards.

You must know that a Chinese must pay all of his debts on or before our New Year's day. He starts every year clean. If he does not, he loses face; but not only that—his family loses face. There are no excuses.