John Steinbeck

"He had drawn a derogatory statement from George. He felt safe now."

"And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way."

"Life is knowledge, livin it is Succes!"

"I know that sometimes a lie is used in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of the truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agonyof a lie is neverlost. That's a running sore"

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts."

"Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad or a stimulant"

"And is usually true of a man of one idea, [Charles] became obsessed."

"One can find so many pains when the rain is falling."

"Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love."

"The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improve"

"Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals."

"I don't want advice.' 'Nobody does. It's a giver's present."

"... but she was also bewilderingly lonely... Abra had lost her gift for being alone."

"There are map people whose joy is to lavish more attention on the sheets of colored paper than on the colored land rolling by. I have listened to accounts by such travelers in which every road number was remembered, every mileage recalled, and every little countryside discovered. Another kind of traveler requires to know in terms of maps exactly where he is pin-pointed at every moment, as though there were some kind of safety in black and red lines, in dotted indications and squirming blue of lakes and the shadings that indicate mountains. It is not so with me. I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found, nor much identification from shapes which symbolize continents and states."

"Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be one. If I go ahead on all of 'em, it's too much. You got to live ahead 'cause you're so young, but—it's jus' the road goin' by for me."

"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."

"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."

"It's a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man's life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness."

"Memory of the knife will be gone when the flesh is gone."

"Look here,” said Will. “When a man comes to me for advice about an idea, I know he doesn’twant advice. He wants me to agree with him. And if I want to keep his friendship I tell him his idea isfine and go ahead. But I like you and you’re a friend of my family, so I’m going to stick my neck out."