Quote

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

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If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do 'll make him feel rich.
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There is one thing pleasantly unconfusing about medicine. The direction and the end are fixed and the patient never works backward.
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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.
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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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In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.
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But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.
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Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.
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And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.
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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. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.
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Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain tittle to building lots.
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If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.
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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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The break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.
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Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over.
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For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word.
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Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
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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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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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Change was everywhere. People were gone, or changed, and that was almost like being gone.
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To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.
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