"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved."
Read quote
5 likes
Quote collection
John Steinbeck quotes (page 20 of 35)
697 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter."
Read quote
5 likes
"A day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cates, dogs, butterflies and people."
Read quote
5 likes
"Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head."
Read quote
5 likes
"He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time."
Read quote
5 likes
"This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me."
Read quote
5 likes
"Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is."
Read quote
5 likes
"It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing."
Read quote
4 likes
"All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not."
Read quote
4 likes
"A boy becomes a man when a man is needed"
Read quote
4 likes
"The craft of writing is the art of penetrating other minds with the figures that are in your own mind."
Read quote
4 likes
"There is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him."
Read quote
4 likes
"A good writer always works at the impossible."
Read quote
4 likes
"..it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world...It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel."
Read quote
4 likes
"Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost."
Read quote
4 likes
"The misery stayed, not thought about but aching away, and sometimes I would have to ask myself, Why do I ache? Men can get used to anything, but it takes time."
Read quote
4 likes
"You ain't worth a greased lack pin to ram you into hell."
Read quote
4 likes
"So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report only a weary evening world."
Read quote
4 likes
"... you must not expect to find that people understand what they do."
Read quote
4 likes
"The impulse of the American woman to geld her husband and castrate her sons is very strong."
Read quote
4 likes