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A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.
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
Pounded
Labored
River
Rivers
Air
Stilted
Heron
Herons
More quotes by John Steinbeck
A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength. .. When any living organism is attacked, its whole function seems to aim towards reproduction.
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In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
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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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Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.
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The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-The sky is falling, cried Henny-Penny, and a piece of it fell on my tail.
John Steinbeck
Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.
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... a man is a very important thing-maybe more important than a star.
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I guess there are never enough books.
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Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.
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There is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp.
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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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In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.
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Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good -- Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music.
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I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.
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Luck or tragedy, some people get runs. Then of course there are those who divide it even, good and bad, but we never hear of them. Such a life doesn't demand attention. Only the people who get the good or bad runs.
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We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.
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I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.
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When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.
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I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.
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You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.
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