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Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.
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
Originality
Develop
Toward
More quotes by John Steinbeck
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.
John Steinbeck
Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.
John Steinbeck
Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world
John Steinbeck
I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.
John Steinbeck
Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.
John Steinbeck
I know this... a man got to do what he got to do.
John Steinbeck
Within that frame he went a long way and burned a deep scar.
John Steinbeck
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.
John Steinbeck
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
People don't want advice...only corroboration.
John Steinbeck
But you can't start over Only a boy can start over You and me Why, we're all that's been
John Steinbeck
There is one thing pleasantly unconfusing about medicine. The direction and the end are fixed and the patient never works backward.
John Steinbeck
In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved.
John Steinbeck
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.
John Steinbeck
If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.
John Steinbeck
I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction.
John Steinbeck
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.
John Steinbeck
Why do men like me want sons? he wondered. It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance at life like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone.
John Steinbeck
And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.
John Steinbeck
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
