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I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

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
Doe
Gallantry
Believe
Hygiene
Men
Membership
Passionately
Dedication
Writer
Hold
Literature
Perfectibility

More quotes by John Steinbeck

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... a man is a very important thing-maybe more important than a star.
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Many are the stories I have heard about myself. I have mistresses I have never met. When I hear that I am a sodomist and a zoophalist then I shall know that I have reached the high point of fame, but I suppose I can hardly expect such exaltation for many years.
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An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.
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It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing to be loved without satiety.
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Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked. 'I don't see how it could be any other way,' said Lee. 'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.
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(Suicide) takes some doing, with maybe pain and maybe hell.
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I have taken as much as six years to prepare a book for writing. There is such a delirium of effort in the production of a book it's like childbirth. And, like childbirth, one forgets the pains immediately so that when you come to write another one you dare to take it up again. Some precious anesthesia sees you through.
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I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.
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Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.
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I have seen too many men go down, and I never permit myself to forget that one day, through accident or under the charge of a younger, stronger knight, I too will go down.
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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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Best thing is to get the words down every day. And it is time to start now.
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There is comfort in routine.
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Some people there are who, being grown forget the horrible task of learning to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he must do it as a child.
John Steinbeck
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You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.
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When you know a friend is there you do not go to see him. Then he's gone and you blast your conscience to shreds that you did not see him.
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It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
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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.
John Steinbeck
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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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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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