1,374 Quotes by John Steinbeck

People don’t take trips—trips take people.

I don't know whether it was a divine stupidity or a great faith that let them do it.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?" [...] How if you wake up in the night and know -and know the willow tree's not there? Can you live without the willow tree? Well, no, you can't. The willow tree is you

If the other tire blew, there we were, on a wet and lonesome road, having no recourse except to burst into tears and wait for death. And perhaps some kind birds might cover us with leaves.

Communications must destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process [...] Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident of human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech [...] What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless

In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won’t happen. As the day approached, my warm bed and comfortable house grew increasingly desirable and my dear wife incalculably precious. To give these up for three months for the terrors of the uncomfortable and unknown seemed crazy. I didn’t want to go. Something had to happen to forbid my going, but it didn’t.

And then I saw what I was to see so many times on the journey--a look of longing. "Lord! I wish I could go.

What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless.

And then I saw what I was to see so many times on the journey—a look of longing. “Lord! I wish I could go.”“Don’t you like it here?”“Sure. It’s all right, but I wish I could go.”“You don’t even know where I’m going.”“I don’t care. I’d like to go anywhere.