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John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes

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Famous John Steinbeck Quotes

“It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.”

IfsWorldShouldTryingTwoSeemsActionRememberDeathCoursesPleasureDyingDeath And DyingEdenEast Of EdenOne Tree Hill VoiceoverTree HillOne Tree Hill OpeningShort One Tree HillOne Tree Hill LifeOne Tree Hill LoveOne Tree Hill MemorableOne Tree Hill DeathOne Tree Hill Inspirational
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.”

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Book:East of Eden
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“Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.”

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Book:The Winter of our Discontent
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“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”

KnowsFeelingsSeemsEyeSilenceVisionTreeProduceColorMarkAweUnbelievableVaryAmbassadorsStatureAnother TimeRedwoodsTravels With Charley
Author:John Steinbeck
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“A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.”

WholeSeemsMovingAnimalEmotionBoysMysteryFeetNewsTownsShouldersNervousFasterFenceNervous System
Book:The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced that there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it.”

IfsWayFeelsWritingMayMeanPersonsImportantSometimesStoriesSeemsAbleLyingMagicReaderConvincedUrgesInsightfulFormulasShort StoryRecipesStory Writing
Author:John Steinbeck
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“We have never understood why men mount the heads of animals and hang them up to look down on their conquerers. Possibly it feels good to these men to feel superior to animals, but does it not seem that if they were sure of it they would not have to prove it? Often a man who is afraid must constantly demonstrate his courage and, in the case of the hunter, must keep a tangible record of his courage.”

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Author:John Steinbeck
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