Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Loaning hard-covered books can strain friendships, while cheap, less significant items do not carry the same weight.
In this quote, John Steinbeck reflects on the impact of material possessions on personal relationships. He suggests that lending valuable or hard-covered books can lead to feelings of resentment when those items are not returned, consequently making people react in negative ways. In contrast, he implies that cheaper items are less likely to cause such emotional conflicts, highlighting how the value we assign to objects can create tension within friendships.
Themes
FriendshipBooksResentmentLendMaterialism
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a discussion about the importance of valuing friendships over material possessions.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes →At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
John SteinbeckRead
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
John SteinbeckRead
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John SteinbeckRead
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
John SteinbeckRead
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
John SteinbeckRead
Similar quotes
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.
Bertrand RussellRead
Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.
Miranda JulyRead
Let us drink together, fellows, as we did in days of yore. And still enjoy the golden hours that Fortune has in store; The absent friends remembered be, in all that’s sung or said, And Love immortal consecrate the memory of the dead.
Albert PikeRead
I think they ought to know. You do them a disservice by not confiding something this important to them.” “I didn’t want —” “— to worry or frighten them?” said Dumbledore, surveying Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles. “Or perhaps, to confess that you yourself are worried and frightened? You need your friends, Harry. As you so rightly said, Sirius would not have wanted you to shut yourself away.
J. K. RowlingRead
What's most important in a friendship? Tolerance and loyalty.
J. K. RowlingRead
I think if you're lucky enough to be in a band with your best friends, and you look at the world in the right way, than you understand that everything that's happening to you can be alchemized.
Chris MartinRead