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The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-The sky is falling, cried Henny-Penny, and a piece of it fell on my tail.

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
Sky
Penny
Piece
Pennies
Pieces
Tail
Literature
Tails
Story
Cried
Fall
Fell
Stories
Falling
Best
Opening

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When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.
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We have to make a mark, even if it's only a scribble.
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I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.
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Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?
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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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All great and precious things are lonely.
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We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome.
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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.
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But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again.
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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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Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world
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...Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.
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We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not.
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A woman holds dreadful power over a man who is in love with her but she should realize that the quality and force of his love is the index of his potential contempt and hatred.
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Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' I thought an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people.
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There is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little they crash and shatter.
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We can shoot rockets into space but we can't cure anger or discontent.
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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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