80+ John Steinbeck Quotes | Minimalist Quotes

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
JOHN STEINBECK

Appearance Poor Roots
Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.
JOHN STEINBECK

Ignorance Men Stupidity
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

Book Himself Talk
I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.
JOHN STEINBECK

Reality Romance War
Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.
JOHN STEINBECK

See Truth Writing
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

Difficult Experience Life Problem
An answer is invariably the parent of a whole family of new questions.
JOHN STEINBECK

Family Parents
You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
JOHN STEINBECK

Advice Deep Yourself
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
JOHN STEINBECK

Animal Couple Ideas Inspirational Wisdom
Books are the best friends you can have; they inform you, and entertain you, and they don’t talk back.
JOHN STEINBECK

Book Entertainment Friendship Talk
People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments.
JOHN STEINBECK

Moments People See
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
JOHN STEINBECK

Change Hide Men
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
JOHN STEINBECK

Explanation Literature Lonely Trying
In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
JOHN STEINBECK

Anger Growth People Soul
All great and precious things are lonely.
JOHN STEINBECK

Alone Greatness Lonely
Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.
JOHN STEINBECK

Lonely People World
To be alive at all is to have scars.
JOHN STEINBECK

Alive Scars
Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.
JOHN STEINBECK

Development Transformation
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
JOHN STEINBECK

Deep Season Summer Winter
Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.
JOHN STEINBECK

Fight God Philosophy Prayer
All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.
JOHN STEINBECK

Animal Failure Men War
It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.
JOHN STEINBECK

Darkness Grief Light Loss
I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.
JOHN STEINBECK

Believe Life Myself People See
When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.
JOHN STEINBECK

Change Deep People Philosophy
Time is the only critic without ambition.
JOHN STEINBECK

Ambition Judgment One Liner Time
The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.
JOHN STEINBECK

Help World Yourself
And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.
JOHN STEINBECK

Encouragement Goodness Inspirational Perfection

John Steinbeck Quotes

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