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John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes

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Famous John Steinbeck Quotes

“I 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. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move.”

WayLooksStatesEyeWantedMovingDesireNationsSawsHeardHungerBurningSomedaySpokesYearningInspiring TravelBurning Desire
Book:Travels with Charley in Search of America
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“There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar.”

IfsLooksHeartDoeCitiesTeachStupidSweetWeakCuresLazyGatesStorytellerSoarTwistsInfirmityEast Of Eden
Book:East of Eden, And, The Wayward Bus
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“The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.”

ThinkingMenHas BeensDifferentChurchSingingWestAccomplishDevotionFacetsBrothelsBleakness
Book:East of Eden
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“Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy - that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.”

ThinkingShouldMindLongMatterSeemsWould BeJoyInterestMemoriesStrangeTragedyPostsDullReasonableRoutineWoundedContradictoryIntervalsDurationDrapes
Book:East of Eden
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“He was born in fury and he lived in lightning. Tom came headlong into life. He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them. When he read his father's books, he was the first. He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day. His mind plunged like a colt in a happy pasture, and when later the world put up fences, he plunged against the wire, and when the final stockade surrounded him, he plunged right through it and out. And as he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow.”

PeopleWorldMindFirstsBookJoyFatherBornHugeSorrowCapableShiningFinalsEnthusiasmGiantsTomsLightningFenceWireFuryHarborsEdenPasturesColts
Book:East of Eden
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“Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fences, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our own hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.”

IfsMenEnoughMightWould BeFallCultureEvilStrongGrowsWaterDarkSecretDevilAngelUglyMonstersAbsurdRelatedClimbsSwimSwimmingPoolFenceStrong EnoughPondsFall BackUgly ThingsAngel And Devil
Author:John Steinbeck
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“And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.”

MenEarthPastGrowthPrayerLandGrewConnectionsDiedHotRaisedFingersSeedsBreadHatedCurseTouchedIronBoresCropsFingertips
Book:The Grapes of Wrath
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