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The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

John Steinbeck

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John Steinbeck
Age: 66 †
Born: 1902
Born: February 27
Died: 1968
Died: December 20
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Salinas
California
John Ernst Steinbeck
Jr.
John Ernst Steinbeck
John Ernest Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr
Steinbeck
Literature
Believe
Powerful
World
True
Must
Important
Illusion
Writing
Writer
Even
Hold
Thing

More quotes by John Steinbeck

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A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.
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Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all else, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.
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In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb VACILAR... It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction.
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If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.
John Steinbeck
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The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it.
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I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton woool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it's such a sweet trap.
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Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.
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I think I love you, Cal. -Abra I'm not good. -Cal Because you're not good. -Abra
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I have wondered why is it that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death that others.
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A journey is a person in itself no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip a trip takes us.
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We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome.
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You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.
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An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.
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I know three things will never be believed - the true, the probable, and the logical
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There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy
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The dairy man had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and he must have had some training in philosophy. He liked what he was doing and he didn't want to be somewhere else - one of the few contented people I met in my whole journey.
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They's times when how you feel got to be kep' to yourself.
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American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash--all of them--surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered in rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.
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Man has a choice and it's a choice that makes him a man.
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When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.
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