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I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.... The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

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
Believe
Evil
Monsters
World
Born
Physical
Process
Produce
Malformed
Body
Parents
Gene
May
Parent
Eden
Soul
Face
Twisted
Human
Faces
Genes
Humans
Perfect
Eggs

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I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house, and he will die of despair.
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You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
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When you're huntin' somepin you're a hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when you get hunted - that's different. Somepin happens to you. You ain't strong: maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong. - Muley
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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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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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An answer is invariably the parent of a whole family of new questions.
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To the heavens on the wings of a pig.
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It requires self-esteem to receive-not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.
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The difficulty of course is that I like women. It is only wives I am in trouble with.
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You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.
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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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The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.
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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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One man was so mad at me that he ended his letter, Beware. You will never get out of this world alive.
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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.
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