"Socialism never took root in America."
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John Steinbeck quotes (page 12 of 35)
697 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference."
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"But 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."
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"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."
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"And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way."
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"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch."
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"Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass. Change may be announced by a small ache, so that you think you're catching cold. Or you may feel a faint disgust for something you loved yesterday. It may even take the form of a hunger that peanuts won't satisfy. Isn't overeating said to be one of the strongest symptoms of discontent. And isn't discontent the lever of change?"
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"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror."
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"You know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future."
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"Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile."
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"I know now why confusion in government is not only tolerated but encouraged. I have learned. A confused people can make no clear demands."
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"Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one."
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"An answer is invariably the parent of a whole family of new questions."
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"I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks."
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"Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world."
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"If we could learn even a little to like ourselves, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away."
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"No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us."
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"Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience."
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"They's times when how you feel got to be kep' to yourself."
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"The camera need not be a cold mechanical device. Like the pen, it is as good as the man who uses it. It can be the extension of mind and heart."
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