John Steinbeck

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. It's scary to think about. Point of reference again. When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.

So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

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.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President himself reads westerns exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence? (John Steinbeck, in a private letter written during the Eisenhower administration)

Like most modern people, I don't believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it.

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

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.

No one wants advice - only corroboration.

It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

The land is so much more than its analysis.

As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many things he did not know about himself.

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.

He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.