Quote

A journey is a person in itself no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policies and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip a trip takes us.

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
Persons
Travel
Safeguards
Person
Plans
Fruitless
Find
Journey
Coercion
Take
Policy
Trip
Years
Struggle
Traveled
People
Takes
Alike
Inspirational
Policies
Two
Adventure

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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.
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“Do you take pride in your hurt?” Samuel asked. “Does it make you seem large and tragic?” “I don't know.” “Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
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Thou mayest rule over sin.
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Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.
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One man was so mad at me that he ended his letter, Beware. You will never get out of this world alive.
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Again it might have been the American tendency in travel. One goes, not so much to see but to tell afterward.
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There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.
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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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When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.
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Only mediocrity escapes criticism.
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Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.
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This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal.
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I had been practicing for the Depression a long time. I wasn't involved with loss. I didn't have money to lose, but in common with millions I did dislike hunger and cold.
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She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.
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No one knows my ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time.
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Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.
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I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background.
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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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Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain tittle to building lots.
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