1,374 Quotes by John Steinbeck

I seen it over an' over—a guy talkin' to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't hear or understand. The thing is, they're talkin', or they're settin' still not talkin'. It don't make no difference, no difference. [...] George can tell you screwy things, and it don't matter. It's just the talking. It's just bein' with another guy. That's all.

Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers.

Oh, the strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!

One can't be happy as I have been for very long. There's a law against it. I have worked hard and enjoyed my work and it is the punishment of man to hate his work. Sooner or later I will have work that I hate.

Lennie said quietly, "It ain't no lie. We're gonna do it. Gonna get a little place an' live on the fatta the lan'.

It must be a hard thing to kill a man you don't know and don't hate.

Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing.

An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.

It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge intime, toprotest againstchange, particularlychangefor the better.