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... Why, that makes a man great... He can choose his course and fight it through and win... I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed – because ‘Thou mayest’. ch 24.

— John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes

A knight without mercy is without honor.

— John Steinbeck

Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him.

— John Steinbeck

The Texans, they say, didn’t want to pay taxes and, second, Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, and Texas, being part of Mexico, was required to free its slaves. Of course there were other causes of revolt, but these two are spectacular to a European, and rarely mentioned here.

— John Steinbeck

One word set off others like a string of firecrackers.

— John Steinbeck

And Samuel could remember hearing of a cousin of his mother’s in Ireland, a knight and rich and handsome, and anyway shot himself on a silken couch, sitting beside the most beautiful woman in the world who loved him. “There’s a capacity for appetite,” Samuel said, “that a whole heaven and earth of cake can’t satisfy.

— John Steinbeck

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They.

— John Steinbeck

And to Kino the secret melody of the maybe pearl broke clear and beautiful, rich and warm and lovely, glowing and gloating and triumphant.

— John Steinbeck

I don’t know whether he was good or bad, but that don’t matter much. He was alive, an’ that’s what matters.

— John Steinbeck

But whereas most men in their search for contentment destroy themselves and fall wearily short of their targets, Mack and his friends approached contentment casually, quietly, and absorbed it gently.

— John Steinbeck

All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins – it never will – but that it doesn’t die.

— John Steinbeck

I want a cold drink.

— John Steinbeck

We got each other, that’s what, that gives a hoot in hell about us.

— John Steinbeck

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough.

— John Steinbeck

Juana, glancing secretly at him, saw him smile. And because they were in some way one thing and one purpose, she smiled with him. And they began this day with hope.

— John Steinbeck

I remember as a child reading or hearing the words ‘The Great Divide’ and being stunned by the glorious sound, a proper sound for the granite backbone of a continent.

— John Steinbeck

Privately there were some things in Heaven of which she did not quite approve. There was too much singing, and she didn’t see how even the Elect could survive for very long the celestial laziness which was promised. She would find something to do in Heaven.

— John Steinbeck

Steinbeck set off from Sag Harbor on the morning of September 23, 1960, with Charley, his tall and gregarious French poodle, for company. “I remember when he asked to take Charley Dog,” his wife later recalled. “He said rather meekly, ‘This is a big favor I’m going to ask, Elaine. Can I take Charley?’ ‘What a good idea,’ I said, ‘if you get into any kind of trouble, Charley can go get help.’ John looked at me sternly and said, ‘Elaine, Charley isn’t Lassie.

— John Steinbeck

They was havin’ the time a their life, an’ same time you wouldn’ give a gopher for their chance.’’ Casy said, “Seems like that’s the way. Fella havin’ fun, he don’t give a damn; but a fella mean an’ lonely an’ old an’ disappointed – he’s scared of dyin’!

— John Steinbeck

But the Gulf does draw one, and we have talked to rich men who own boats, who can go where they will. Regularly they find themselves sucked into the Gulf. And since we have returned, there is always in the backs of our minds the positive drive to go back again. If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen. The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back if we live, and we don’t know why.

— John Steinbeck

Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ’em because he ain’t a big guy.

— John Steinbeck
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