John Steinbeck

I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.

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.

Well, I remember this girl. I am not whole without her. I am not alive without her. When she was with me I was more alive than I have ever been, and not only when she was pleasant either. Even when we were fighting I was whole.

If you want to keep a friend, never test him.

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.

Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.

A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes reality along with other realities—never to be destroyed but easily to be attacked.

Then it is better, sir, to love whom one cannot have?" "Probably better," Lancelot said. "Certainly safer.

It was deeply a part of Lee's kindness and understanding that man's right to kill himself is inviolable, but sometimes a friend can make it unnecessary

Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it.

The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.

Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.

Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile.

The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental.

For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.

There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy

The theater is the only institution in the world which has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed. It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive.

Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him.

Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.