Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenPeopleEast Of EdenIfsKnowsWorldThinkingWritingTravels With CharleyLittlesWayMindWantLiteratureDoeHumansKindWholeSeemsSteinbeck

Famous John Steinbeck Quotes

“The cars of the migrant people crawled out of the side roads onto the great cross-country highway, and they took the migrant way to the West.... And because they were lonely and perplexed, because they had all come from a place of sadness and worry and defeat, and because they were all going to a mysterious new place, ... a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream.”

PeopleWayChildrenCountryHomeDreamSidesLossWorryHappenedSadnessCarStrangeCrossesLonelyTwentiesWestDefeatThings HappenGoldenMysteriousHighwaysStrange ThingsMigrantsNew PlacesPerplexed
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”

ThinkingWayCertainMarriageJourneyAdventureTravelAround The WorldTime TravelTraveledTravelerFunny TravelVoyagesTourismTravellerTravel WritingGreat TravelInspiring TravelTravel The WorldTravel AdventureAdventure And TravelNomadLife Is An AdventurePhotography And TravelInspirational AdventureRoads TraveledWant To TravelBackpackingTravel AbroadNomadicTravel And TourismTravel JourneyRoads And JourneysInspirational Adventure TimeTravel ExperienceTravel BugInspirational VacationTravels With CharleyFunny AdventureForeign TravelAdventurous SoulsFunny JourneyOutdoor AdventureJourney InspirationalCultures Of The World
Book:Travels with Charley in Search of America
Create image

“Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?”

WayLittlesStrangeBabyShapesCrossesBoxesBonesBrokeEggsChickensChicks
Book:The Winter of our Discontent
Create image

“Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayKidsGuyFightingHouseStuffLaughingReadyRaisesMadFolksHungryCopWrathGrapesSupper
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“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
Create image

“The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24”

MenWorldWayGivingHumansImportantSoulMightChoicesFightingUniverseCoursesWinningUniqueInstrumentsLovelyDestroyedHuman SoulEdenHebrewEast Of EdenImportant WordsUnique Things
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book — to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.”

WayWritingBookWholeStoriesMightCertainWaterAnimalBreakImpossibleSeaPagesLiftsFlatsBottlesKnivesDelicateWormsMarineBladesSea Water
Author:John Steinbeck
Create image

“My wife, my Mary, goes to her sleep the way you would close the door of a closet. So many times I have watched her with envy. Her lovely body squirms a moment as though she fitted herself into a cocoon. She sighs once and at the end of it her eyes close and her lips, untroubled, fall into that wise and remote smile of the Ancient Greek gods. She smiles all night in her sleep, her breath purrs in her throat, not a snore, a kitten's purr... She loves to sleep and sleep welcomes her.”

WayEndsMomentsBodyEyeNightFallSleepWiseWifeDoorsBreathsLipsAncientMy WifeEnvyLovelyGreekThroatMaryHer EyesClosetsSighAll NightKittenAncient GreekCocoonsGreek God
Book:The Winter of our Discontent
Create image

“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
Create image

“The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.”

MenWayGivingLongHelpingMotherLostHoursAttentionPathClearSeeingConversationUniversalClaimsStrangerTechniqueBest WayOpeningKicksStomachLong AgoStarvingWrong DirectionTravels With Charley
Book:Travels with Charley in Search of America
Create image