Top 500 John Steinbeck Quotes (2022 Update)
Page 10 of 10

451. “For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis.”

— John Steinbeck

452. “The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.”

— John Steinbeck

453. “He wears a beard and his face is half Christ and half satyr and his face tells the truth.”

— John Steinbeck

454. “Lead ’em around and around,’’ said Joad. “Sling ’em in the irrigation ditch. Tell ’em they’ll burn in hell if they don’t think like you. What the hell you want to lead ’em someplace for? Jus’ lead ’em.”

— John Steinbeck

455. “The proofs that God does not exist are very strong, but in lots of people they are not as strong as the feeling that He does.”

— John Steinbeck

Featured in: Strong Quotes

456. “It was too nerve-wracking, a shocking spectacle, like seeing an old, calm friend go insane.”

— John Steinbeck

457. “The first grave. Now we’re getting someplace. Houses and children and graves, that’s home, Tom. Those are the things that hold a man down.”

— John Steinbeck

458. “It requires self-esteem to receive-not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.”

— John Steinbeck

459. “The emotion of nonviolence was building in him until it became a prejudice like any other thought-stultifying prejudice. To inflict any hurt on anything for any purpose became inimical to him. He became obsessed with this emotion, for such it surely was, until it blotted out any possible thinking in its area. But never was there any hint of cowardice in Adam’s army record. Indeed he was commended three times and then decorated for bravery.”

— John Steinbeck

460. “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.”

— John Steinbeck

461. “One day we’ll sit and you’ll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now – why, you can’t find all the cards.”

— John Steinbeck

462. “There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything.”

— John Steinbeck

463. “When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.”

— John Steinbeck

Featured in: Country Quotes

464. “So many old and lovely things are stored in the world’s attic because we don’t want them around us and we don’t dare throw them out.”

— John Steinbeck

465. “Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world, of all living things.”

— John Steinbeck

466. “There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can’t see or hear or touch a man, it’s best to let him go.”

— John Steinbeck

467. “Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own history based on, but not limited by, facts.”

— John Steinbeck

468. “He was born in fury and he lived in lightning.”

— John Steinbeck

469. “Cathy spoke very quietly. “Adam, I didn’t want to come here. I am not going to stay here. As soon as I can I will go away.”

— John Steinbeck

470. “It’s hard to split a man down the middle and always to reach for the same half.”

— John Steinbeck

471. “He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.”

— John Steinbeck

472. “Teresina went often to confession. She was the despair of Father Ramon. Indeed he had seen that while her knees, her hands, and her lips did penance for an old sin, her modest and provocative eyes, flashing under drawn lashes, laid the foundation for a new one. During.”

— John Steinbeck

473. “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...”

— John Steinbeck

474. “He is so stupid you can’t trust him with an idea.”

— John Steinbeck

475. “Sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat, saying this is the safety, this is warmth, this is the Whole.”

— John Steinbeck

476. “But Doc had one mental habit he could not get over. When anyone asked a question, Doc thought he wanted to know the answer.”

— John Steinbeck

477. “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.”

— John Steinbeck

478. “I have wondered why is it that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death that others.”

— John Steinbeck

479. “If a man ordered a beer milkshake he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known.”

— John Steinbeck

480. “Nobody changes. Nobody gets hurt.”

— John Steinbeck

481. “We have made our mark on the world, but we have really done nothing that the trees and creeping plants, ice and erosion, cannot remove in a fairly short time.”

— John Steinbeck

482. “Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”

— John Steinbeck

483. “American married life is the doormat to the whorehouse.”

— John Steinbeck

484. “Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong.”

— John Steinbeck

485. “I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times.”

— John Steinbeck

486. “His whispered word seemed to hang in the air: “Timshel!” His eyes closed and he slept.”

— John Steinbeck

487. “No one could call him a liar. And this was mainly because the lie was in his head, and any truth coming from his mouth carried the color of the lie.”

— John Steinbeck

488. “He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.”

— John Steinbeck

489. “I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one.”

— John Steinbeck

490. “You got to live before you can afford to die.”

— John Steinbeck

491. “I see hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out there. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land. It’s just in their head.”

— John Steinbeck

492. “We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.”

— John Steinbeck

493. “Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears that the solar system of stars.”

— John Steinbeck

494. “He ain’t no cuckoo,” said George. “He’s dumb as hell, but he ain’t crazy. An’ I ain’t so bright neither, or I wouldn’t be buckin’ barley for my fifty and found.”

— John Steinbeck

495. “To the heavens on the wings of a pig.”

— John Steinbeck

496. “It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leporous.”

— John Steinbeck

497. “All in all it was a good firm-grounded family, permanent, and successfully planted in the Salinas Valley, not poorer than many and not richer than many either. It was a well-balanced family with its conservatives and its radicals, its dreamers and its realists. Samuel was well pleased with the fruit of his loins.”

— John Steinbeck

498. “I ain’t sleepin’. I got too much to puzzle with.”

— John Steinbeck

499. “Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition. Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is more blue than you can imagine.”

— John Steinbeck

500. “But a man needs company.”

— John Steinbeck