Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
You're getting well,' Samuel said. 'Some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Healing and recovery are universal processes that should not be viewed as an insult to one's struggles.
In this quote, Steinbeck emphasizes the natural process of healing, suggesting that the desire to recover should not be seen as diminishing one’s past suffering. The idea is that time, as a healer, affects everyone equally, and to embrace recovery is to acknowledge the inevitability of change and improvement, rather than a denial of one's experiences or pain.
Themes
HealingTimeRecoverySufferingGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
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
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