I know now why confusion in government is not only tolerated but encouraged. I have learned. Confused people can make no clear demands.
JOHN STEINBECKAnd finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.
More John Steinbeck Quotes
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Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
JOHN STEINBECK -
In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.
JOHN STEINBECK -
I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks.
JOHN STEINBECK -
If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.
JOHN STEINBECK -
A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.
JOHN STEINBECK -
It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
JOHN STEINBECK -
People like you to be something, preferably what they are.
JOHN STEINBECK -
No one wants advice – only corroboration.
JOHN STEINBECK -
An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There’s a punishment for it, and it’s usually crucifixion.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.
JOHN STEINBECK -
There’s a responsibility in being a person. It’s more than just taking up space where air would be.
JOHN STEINBECK -
To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn’t really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.
JOHN STEINBECK -
A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.
JOHN STEINBECK -
The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line.
JOHN STEINBECK -
An answer is invariably the parent of a whole family of new questions.
JOHN STEINBECK -
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
JOHN STEINBECK -
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.
JOHN STEINBECK -
With all our horrors and faults, somewhere in us there is a shining.
JOHN STEINBECK -
All great and precious things are lonely.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
JOHN STEINBECK -
If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.
JOHN STEINBECK -
This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain.
JOHN STEINBECK -
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
JOHN STEINBECK -
People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Time is the only critic without ambition.
JOHN STEINBECK