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I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction.
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
Comfort
Sloth
Grow
Apathy
Security
Cynicism
Grows
Named
Nations
Rebellion
Listless
Self
Bored
Slothful
World
Plenty
Submerged
Satisfaction
Destroyers
More quotes by John Steinbeck
So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.
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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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she knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near
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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.
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Within that frame he went a long way and burned a deep scar.
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Like most modern people, I don't believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it.
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I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.
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Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.
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Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.
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And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.
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Change was everywhere. People were gone, or changed, and that was almost like being gone.
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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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(Suicide) takes some doing, with maybe pain and maybe hell.
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I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.
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If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.
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Life could not change the sun or water the desert, so it changed itself.
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...no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.
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So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report only a weary evening world.
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When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.
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Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.
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