Quote

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

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
Write
Freely
Found
Correct
Whole
Throw
Writing
Excuse
Thing
Paper
Going
Usually
Never
Possible
Rewrite
Process
Rapidly

More quotes by John Steinbeck

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Time is the only critic without ambition.
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Don't make everyone know about your sadness.
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There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.
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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.
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The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.
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Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
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When you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted - that's different. Somepin happens to you. You ain't strong: maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong. - Muley
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The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
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Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.
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If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.
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Why do men like me want sons? he wondered. It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance at life like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone.
John Steinbeck
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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.
John Steinbeck
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It is a nice thing to be working and believing in my work again. I hope I can keep the drive. I only feel whole and well when it is this way.
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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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Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?
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Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good -- Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music.
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Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't let me catch you doing it! Now -- look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do.
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Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.
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It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.
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You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.
John Steinbeck