"In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable."
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John Steinbeck quotes (page 6 of 35)
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"Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids."
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"I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger."
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"But 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. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not."
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"Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money."
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"I guess there are never enough books."
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"I've always tried out my material on my dogs first. Years ago, when my red setter chewed up the manuscript of 'Of Mice and Men,' I said at the time that the dog must have been an excellent literary critic."
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"“Do you take pride in your hurt?” Samuel asked. “Does it make you seem large and tragic?” “I don't know.” “Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”"
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"In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb VACILAR... It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction."
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"We don't take a trip. A trip takes us."
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"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do...Try to be better than yourself."
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"To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done."
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"The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it."
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"His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought."
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"But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units -- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails."
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"Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it."
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"There's nothing in the world like that first taste of beer."
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"That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis."
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"Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper."
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"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."
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