Quote

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
Believe
Literature
World
Powerful
True
Must
Important
Writing
Illusion
Even
Writer
Thing
Hold

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If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.
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When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.
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...no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.
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A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.
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I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments
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I had been practicing for the Depression a long time. I wasn't involved with loss. I didn't have money to lose, but in common with millions I did dislike hunger and cold.
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Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.
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For many years we have suckled on fear and fear alone, and there is no good product of fear.
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If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.
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How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?
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[He] fell right into the oldest conviction in the world-- that the girl you are in love with can't possibly be anything but true and honest.
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This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
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My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and power and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size.
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Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
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The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.
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We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip a trip takes us.
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I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.
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I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.
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If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much - make it greedy, miserable and sick.
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