John Steinbeck Quotes

American writer (1902–1968)

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) was an American writer. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, his works include the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Great Depression.

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Birth Name: Jeffery Ernest Steinbeck

Alternative Names: John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. • John Ernst Steinbeck • John Ernest Steinbeck • John Ernst Steinbeck Jr • Steinbeck

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In the dusk I saw her smile, that incredible female smile. It is called wisdom but it isn't that but rather an understanding that makes wisdom unnecessary.

"Ellen, only last night, asked, 'Daddy, when will we be rich?' But I did not say to her what I know: 'We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.' And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms."

No one wants advice — only corroboration.

Can you disbelieve in something you don't know about? […] It isn't that I don't believe but that I don't know.

What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can read only a few and those perhaps not accurately.

Even if teen-age children aren't making a sound, it's quieter when they're gone. They put a boiling in the air around them. As they left, the whole house seemed to sigh and settle. No wonder poltergeists infest only houses with adolescent children.

What a wonderful thing a woman is. I can admire what they do even if I don't understand why.

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people. Maybe that means — hell, it's complicated.

Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Mary — do you hear? Who are you in there?

Sometimes it's great fun to be silly, like children playing statues and dying of laughter. And sometimes being silly breaks the even pace and lets you get a new start.

They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.

It is odd how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn't thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It's a safety place — everyone must have one, although I never heard a man tell of it.

My dreams are the problems of the day stepped up to absurdity, a little like men dancing, wearing the horns and masks of animals.

"I'm sorry," Ethan said. "You have taught me something — maybe three things, rabbit footling mine. Three things will never be believed — the true, the probable, and the logical. I know now where to get the money to start my fortune."