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You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.

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
Monstrous
Norm
Monster
Monsters
Chaos
Forget
Must
Variation

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Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing.
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We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not.
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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.
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A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger then a man on foot.
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If you are in love-that's a good thing-that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.
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The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.
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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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An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.
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I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion.
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And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, Use it well, use it wisely.
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A strange species we are, We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, sick. --John Steinbeck to Adlai Stevenson
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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 writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome.
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To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.
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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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Only mediocrity escapes criticism.
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The last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man.
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... a man is a very important thing-maybe more important than a star.
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She wasn't happy, but then she wasn't unhappy. She wasn't anything. But I don't believe anyone is a nothing. There has to be something inside, if only to keep the skin from collapsing. This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.
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Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.
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