28 Quotes About Steinbeck

The way he talked about moving south reminded us of the Joads in Grapes of Wrath. He was a smart kid, but all he was thinking about was peaches.-Only Shot At A Good Tombstone, page 24

One who was born by the ocean or has associated with it cannot ever be quite content away from it for very long

Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to.

There's more beauty in the truth even if it is a dreadful beauty.

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.

Steinbeck wrote about the tide pools and how profoundly they illustrate the interconnectedness of all things, folded together in an ever-expanding universe that's bound by the elastic string of time. He said that one should look from the tide pool to the stars, and then back again in wonder.

...[A] loving woman is almost indestructible.

In every man this thing is hidden. It tries to get out, but a man's fears distort it. He chokes it back. What does get out is changed-blood on the hands of a statue, emotion over the story of an ancient torture-the giving or drawing of blood in copulation.

I have made up reasons, but they aren't true. I have said to myself, 'The sun is life. I give life to life'-'I make a symbol of the sun's death.' When I made these reasons I knew they weren't true.....I gave up reasons. I do this because it makes me glad. I do it because I like to.