Quote

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.

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
Writing
Magic
Story
Another
Stories
Recipe
Persons
Recipes
Able
Reduce
Person
Passed
Ever
Convinced

More quotes by John Steinbeck

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A strange species we are, We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, sick. --John Steinbeck to Adlai Stevenson
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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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He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.
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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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Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
John Steinbeck
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This you may say of man - when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.
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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For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. The last is by far the commonest reaction to stigma.
John Steinbeck
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The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.
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I have wondered why is it that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death that others.
John Steinbeck
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We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip a trip takes us.
John Steinbeck
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it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.
John Steinbeck
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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.
John Steinbeck
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The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.
John Steinbeck
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When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction - and that was conversation.
John Steinbeck
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Books are the best friends you can have they inform you, and entertain you, and they don't talk back.
John Steinbeck
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In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John Steinbeck
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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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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.
John Steinbeck
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Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.
John Steinbeck