Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them … - John Steinbeck
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Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank - or the Company - needs - wants - insists - must have - as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.
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.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, McFadden Publications, Inc.; no photographer credited; photo likely the work of Sonya Noskowiak, as Steinbeck is wearing the same clothes from her 1935 studio session that produced the work shown here: https://www.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2006.74 (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Jeffery Ernest Steinbeck
Alternative Names:
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr.
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John Ernst Steinbeck
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John Ernest Steinbeck
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John Ernst Steinbeck Jr
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Steinbeck
Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the Bastard Time.
The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold onto this illusion, even though he knows it's not true.
I take a pleasure in inquiring into things. I’ve never been content to pass a stone without looking under it. And it is a black disappointment to me that I can never see the far side of the moon.
