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.
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The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
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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.
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