All great and precious things are lonely.
JOHN STEINBECKIf 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.
More John Steinbeck Quotes
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Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
JOHN STEINBECK -
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
JOHN STEINBECK -
No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.
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 -
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
JOHN STEINBECK -
The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.
JOHN STEINBECK -
An answer is invariably the parent of a whole family of new questions.
JOHN STEINBECK -
The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper.
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 -
Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.
JOHN STEINBECK -
People like you to be something, preferably what they are.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Only mediocrity escapes criticism.
JOHN STEINBECK -
Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.
JOHN STEINBECK -
This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
JOHN STEINBECK -
It’s almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.
JOHN STEINBECK -
With all our horrors and faults, somewhere in us there is a shining.
JOHN STEINBECK -
When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.
JOHN STEINBECK -
You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
JOHN STEINBECK -
It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
JOHN STEINBECK -
A man without words is a man without thought.
JOHN STEINBECK