"The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-"The sky is falling," cried Henny-Penny, "and a piece of it fell on my tail."
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Quote collection
John Steinbeck quotes (page 17 of 35)
697 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We have to make a mark, even if it's only a scribble."
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"Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down."
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"The great concepts of oneness and of majestic order seem always to be born in the desert."
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"And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely."
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"And their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels."
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"Liza poured thick batter from a pitcher onto a soapstone griddle. The hot cakes rose like little hassocks, and small volcanoes formed and erupted on them until they were ready to be turned. A cheerful brown, they were, with tracings of darker brown. And the kitchen was full of the good sweet smell of them."
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"it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials."
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"Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans."
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"There is no term comparable to green thumbs to apply to such a mechanic, but there should be. For there are men who can look, listen, tap, make an adjustment, and a machine works."
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"Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species. --speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962"
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"When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find himself a good and sufficient reason for going."
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"He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat."
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"We have not known a single great scientist who could not discourse freely and interestingly with a child. Can it be that haters of clarity have nothing to say, have observed nothing, have no clear picture of even their own fields?"
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"I think bullfights are for men who aren't very brave and wish they were. If you saw one you'll know what I mean. Remember after all the cape work when the bull tries to kill something that isn't there? Remember how he gets confused and uneasy, sometimes just stands and looks for an answer? Well, then they have to give him a horse or his heart will break. He has to get his horns into something solid or his spirit dies. Well, I'm that horse. And that's the kind of men I get, confused and puzzled. If they can get a horn into me, that's a little triumph."
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"A wife is like a children's movie; always under-appreciated and without either, life would be incomplete."
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"A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner."
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"Men all do about the same thing when they wake up."
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"I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion."
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"If I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an' no trouble."
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