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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.

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
Think
Either
Backgrounds
Thinking
Story
Sentences
Stories
Provide
Doe
Develop
Character
Carry
Book
East
Eden
Whole
Necessary
Sentence
Writing
Single
Background

More quotes by John Steinbeck

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Many are the stories I have heard about myself. I have mistresses I have never met. When I hear that I am a sodomist and a zoophalist then I shall know that I have reached the high point of fame, but I suppose I can hardly expect such exaltation for many years.
John Steinbeck
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There is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little they crash and shatter.
John Steinbeck
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To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.
John Steinbeck
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The last clear definite function of man — muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need — this is man.
John Steinbeck
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It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.
John Steinbeck
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she knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near
John Steinbeck
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Once I knew the City very well, spent my attic days there, while others were being a lost generation in Paris, I fledged in San Francisco, climbed its hills. slept in its parks, worked on its docks, marched and shouted in its revolts~ It had been to me in the days of my poverty and it did not resent my temporary solvency.
John Steinbeck
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Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.
John Steinbeck
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Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
John Steinbeck
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There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.
John Steinbeck
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Best thing is to get the words down every day. And it is time to start now.
John Steinbeck
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Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.
John Steinbeck
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I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.
John Steinbeck
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Only mediocrity escapes criticism.
John Steinbeck
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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.
John Steinbeck
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Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.
John Steinbeck
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If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much - make it greedy, miserable and sick.
John Steinbeck
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Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked. 'I don't see how it could be any other way,' said Lee. 'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.
John Steinbeck
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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.
John Steinbeck
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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.
John Steinbeck