Quote

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.

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
Men
Influence
Indeed
Attempted
Love
Loved
Failure
Underneath
Life
Dies
Short
Cuts
Comes
Cutting
Talents
Certain
Dying
Layers
Matter
Genius
Uncertainty
Topmost
Must
Cold
Vices
Unloved
Good
Talent
Horror
Frailty

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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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If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
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A book is somehow sacred. A dictator can kill and maim people, can sink to any kind of tyranny and only be hated, but when books are burned the ultimate in tyranny has happened. This we cannot forgive.
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There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy
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Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
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And finally comes culture, which is entertainment, relaxation, transport out of the pain of living.
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A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.
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Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.
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And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man.
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The great concepts of oneness and of majestic order seem always to be born in the desert.
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I think bullfights are for men who aren't very brave and wish they were.
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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 spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.
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Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.
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Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him.
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I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
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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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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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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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No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.
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