Quotes from John Steinbeck

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.

He don't like no fancy stuff like that. He don't even like word writin'. Kinda scares 'im, I guess. Ever' time Pa seen writin', somebody took somepin away from 'im.

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin,3 were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I,'' and cuts you off forever from the "we.

He felt a desire to open his body for her inspection, so that she could see all the hidden things in him, even the things he did not know were there.

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children?

We don't think you're a bad father. Poor things, said Adam. How would you know? You've never had any other kind.

Kaip greitai nakt? lekia mintys po kojom šerkšnui girgždant.

They gonna need help. They got to live before they can afford to die.

Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool. (chap 32)

And then—it was very fast, almost a click in the brain—Adam knew that, for him at least, his father's methods had no reference to anything in the world but his father.

Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.

La donna può cambiare meglio dell'uomo, disse Ma' in tono rassicurante. La donna la vita ce l'ha tutta nelle braccia. L'uomo ce l'ha tutta nella testa. Non ti devi scoraggiare. Magari... be', magari l'anno prossimo abbiamo un posto tutto per noi.

You know why you did it. You were mad at him, and you were mad at him because your father hurt your feelings. That's not difficult. You were just mean.

the room leaped to darkness.

She told the best lie of all—the truth.

Seems like our life's over and done. No, it ain't, Ma smiled. It ain't, Pa. An' that's one more thing a woman knows. I noticed that. Man, he lives in jerks -- baby born an' a man dies, an' that's a jerk -- gets a farm an' loses a farm, an' that's a jerk. Woman, it's all one flow, like a stream, like eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that. We ain't gonna die out. People is goin' on -- changin' a little, maybe, but goin' right on.

Su rostro era anhelante, maduro y bien parecido; hasta su forma de manejar las tijeras era demasiado anhelante y contundente. Los tallos de crisantemo parecían demasiado pequeños y manejables para su energía.

He wasn' doing nothin' against the law, Ma. I been thinkin' a hell of a lot, thinkin' about our people livin' like pigs, an' the good rich lan' layin' fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hunderd thousan' good farmers is starvin'. An' I been wonderin' if all our folks got together an' yelled, like them fellas yelled, only a few of 'em at the Hooper ranch—

She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness

There's no beholden in a time of dying, said Wilson, and Sairy echoed him, Never no beholden. p. 145

People didn't really believe in war even while they planned it. The Salinas Valley lived about as it always had.

timshel—'Thou mayest'—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' Don't you

He was a stranger to all the worl,but he was not lonely.

Viskas nuo žmogaus priklauso. Vienintel? j?ga - pats žmogus. Tik juo gali pasikliauti.