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The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.
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
Leaders
Generals
Ground
Settled
Training
Techniques
Leader
Mexican
Knew
Properly
Making
Technique
War
Murder
Self
Horrible
Murders
More quotes by John Steinbeck
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
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The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it.
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I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.
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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.
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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.
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A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.
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I have taken as much as six years to prepare a book for writing. There is such a delirium of effort in the production of a book it's like childbirth. And, like childbirth, one forgets the pains immediately so that when you come to write another one you dare to take it up again. Some precious anesthesia sees you through.
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We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.
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I have no interest in the printed word. I would continue to write if there were no writing and no print. I put my words down for a matter of memory. They are more made to be spoken than to be read.
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Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world.
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Courage and fear were one thing too.
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How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President himself reads westerns exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence? (John Steinbeck, in a private letter written during the Eisenhower administration)
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Such is the prestige of the Nobel Award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to speak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practised it through the ages.
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The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.
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I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straitening shyness that assail one. It is as though the words were not only indelible but that they spread out like dye in water and color everything around them. A strange and mystic business, writing.
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For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.
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It must be a hard thing to kill a man you don't know and don't hate.
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A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn't say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn't like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn't shave.
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The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.
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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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