Quote

The people in flight from the terror behind-strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.

John Steinbeck

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Faith
Cruel
Happens
Flight
Beautiful
Terror
Things
Behinds
People
Behind
Strange
Happen
Forever
Bitterly

More quotes by John Steinbeck

Image
He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see?
John Steinbeck
Image
I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one.
John Steinbeck
Image
..it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world...It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel.
John Steinbeck
Image
There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.
John Steinbeck
Image
Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' I thought an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people.
John Steinbeck
Image
I think bullfights are for men who aren't very brave and wish they were.
John Steinbeck
Image
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.
John Steinbeck
Image
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.
John Steinbeck
Image
War ... a reversal of the rules where a man is permitted to kill all the humans he can.
John Steinbeck
Image
...no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.
John Steinbeck
Image
There's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not.
John Steinbeck
Image
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.
John Steinbeck
Image
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.
John Steinbeck
Image
It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it and at the same time not to know anything about it.
John Steinbeck
Image
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.
John Steinbeck
Image
Well, I git enough sorrow. I like to git away from it.
John Steinbeck
Image
The lies we tell about our duty and our purposes, the meaningless words of science and philosophy, are walls that topple before a bewildered little ‘why’.
John Steinbeck
Image
Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.
John Steinbeck
Image
The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.
John Steinbeck
Image
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
John Steinbeck