1,374 Quotes by John Steinbeck

What have I to fear but starvation?" Kino asked.

The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts will do the same thing in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in a path or a breath caught at the sight of a pretty girl or a finger nail nicked in the garden soil.

...every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness.

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.

Young Henry was conscious, this night, that he had lived for fifteen tedious years without accomplishing any single thing of importance. And had his mother known his feeling she would have said,'He is growing.'And his father would have repeated after her,'Yes, the boy is growing.' But neither would have understood what the other meant.

Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough

I have thought the difference might be that my Mary knows she will live forever, that she will step from the living into another life as easily as she slips from sleep to wakefulness. She knows this with her whole body, so completely that she does not think of it any more than she thinks to breathe. Thus she has time to sleep, time to rest, time to cease to exist for a little.

What pillow can one have like a good conscience?

Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here 'I lost my land' is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate--'We lost *our* land.