"You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff"
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John Steinbeck quotes (page 11 of 35)
697 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders."
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"Some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread their hatred around like butter on hot bread."
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"The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."
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"We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome."
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"It is strange how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn't thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It's a safety place. Everyone must have one, although I never heard a man tell of it."
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"I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar - if he is financially fortunate."
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"And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away."
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"I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost."
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"A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it."
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"Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America."
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"Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time."
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"I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment."
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"I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer -- and what trees and seasons smelled like -- how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich."
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"There's more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty."
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"It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth."
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"We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not."
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"Yes, you should talk," he said. "Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin' man can talk the murder right out of his mouth."
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"What some people find in religion a writer may find in his craft...a kind of breaking through to glory."
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"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? You only truly, deeply appreciate and are grateful for something when you compare and contrast it to something worse."
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