Quote

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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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
Littles
Writer
Ever
Goes
Finish
Little
Word
Puts
Done
Story
Leaves
Writing
Lasts
Sadness
Really
Last
Inspiring
Death
Behinds
Stories
Behind

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Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is--and a woman too, I guess.
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We have to make a mark, even if it's only a scribble.
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A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes reality along with other realities—never to be destroyed but easily to be attacked.
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I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
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In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.
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Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over.
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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?
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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.
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People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all.
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for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.
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... every little boy thinks he invented sin.
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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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On all levels American society is rigged. I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.
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Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.
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I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house, and he will die of despair.
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You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.
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I know people who are so immersed in road maps that they never see the countryside they pass through, and others who, having traced a route, are held to it as though held by flanged wheels to rails.
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