110+ John Steinbeck Quotes On War, Death And Writing

John Steinbeck was an American author who wrote during the early 20th century. He is best known for his novels such as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 for his works that explored the American experience during the Great Depression. Following is our collection on famous quotes by John Steinbeck on love, war, death.

Top 10 John Steinbeck Quotes

1. Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
2. Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
3. What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
4. The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.
5. And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.
6. I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.
7. Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals.
8. This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
9. It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
10. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.

John Steinbeck Image Quotes

Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals. — John Steinbeck

If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. — John Steinbeck

There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension. — John Steinbeck

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him. — John Steinbeck

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Short Quotes

• There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.
• Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.
• I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.
• A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
• A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.
• This I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
• It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.
• Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.
• All great and precious things are lonely.
• A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

John Steinbeck Quotes About Love

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. — John Steinbeck

The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the town lets wither a time and die. — John Steinbeck

I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it. — John Steinbeck

Once Charley fell in love with a dachshund, a romance racially unsuitable, physically ridiculous, and mechanically impossible. But all these problems Charley ignored. He loved deeply and tried dogfully. — John Steinbeck

Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love. — John Steinbeck

All Americans believe that they are born fishermen. For a man to admit a distaste for fishing would be like denouncing mother-love or hating moonlight. — John 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. — John Steinbeck

But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest. — John Steinbeck

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. — John Steinbeck

Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About War

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal. — John Steinbeck

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners. — John Steinbeck

Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. — John Steinbeck

War ... a reversal of the rules where a man is permitted to kill all the humans he can. — John Steinbeck

My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and power and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size. — John Steinbeck

It must be a hard thing to kill a man you don't know and don't hate. — John Steinbeck

The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible. — John Steinbeck

I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger. — John Steinbeck

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. — John Steinbeck

The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Death

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world. — John Steinbeck

I have wondered why is it that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death that others. — John Steinbeck

Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother. — John Steinbeck

To finish is a 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. — John Steinbeck

I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference. — John Steinbeck

Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked. 'I don't see how it could be any other way,' said Lee. 'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time. — John Steinbeck

Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world, of all living things. — John Steinbeck

Some men ease themselves like setting hens into the nest of death. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Writing

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. — John Steinbeck

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play. — John Steinbeck

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. — John Steinbeck

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. — John Steinbeck

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. — John Steinbeck

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. — John Steinbeck

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do...Try to be better than yourself. — John Steinbeck

The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness. — John Steinbeck

A creative person has to be alive. He can't borrow from things he's done in the past. He can't let his method choose his subjects or his characters. They can't be warped to fit his style. — John Steinbeck

Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Life

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him. — John Steinbeck

It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it. — John Steinbeck

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier? — John Steinbeck

We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — "Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought." — John Steinbeck

Lord, how the day passes! It is like a life, so quickly when we don't watch it, and so slowly if we do. — John Steinbeck

We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. — John Steinbeck

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. — John Steinbeck

A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill? — John Steinbeck

A wife is like a children's movie; always under-appreciated and without either, life would be incomplete. — John Steinbeck

Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Power

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power. — John Steinbeck

The power of an attitude is amazing — John Steinbeck

The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules. — John Steinbeck

A woman holds dreadful power over a man who is in love with her but she should realize that the quality and force of his love is the index of his potential contempt and hatred. — John Steinbeck

No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us. — John Steinbeck

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Teaching

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. — John Steinbeck

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. — John Steinbeck

There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar. — John Steinbeck

How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President himself reads westerns exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence? (John Steinbeck, in a private letter written during the Eisenhower administration) — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Friendship

Books are the best friends you can have; they inform you, and entertain you, and they don't talk back. — John Steinbeck

I'm back with my own kind of people here now, the bums and drinkers and no goods and it is a fine thing. — John Steinbeck

Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About America

For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland. — John Steinbeck

Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. — John Steinbeck

Socialism never took root in America. — John Steinbeck

This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me. — John Steinbeck

I am writing this from what we Americans call Yurrp. In Yurrp writers are taken as seriously as Lana Turner's legs are in America - a ridiculous situation. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About People

A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more. — John Steinbeck

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. — John Steinbeck

There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers. — John Steinbeck

Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other. — John Steinbeck

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself. — John Steinbeck

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need -- go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help -- the only ones. — John Steinbeck

The theater is the only institution in the world which has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed. It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive. — John Steinbeck

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. — John Steinbeck

And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way. — John Steinbeck

I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer -- and what trees and seasons smelled like -- how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About World

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

But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not. — John Steinbeck

There's nothing in the world like that first taste of beer. — John Steinbeck

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. — John Steinbeck

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

Some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread their hatred around like butter on hot bread. — John Steinbeck

In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different. — John Steinbeck

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world — 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

They're a dark people with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It's said that without whiskey to soak and soften the world, they'd kill themselves. (Irish) — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About Writer

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable. — John Steinbeck

Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor. — John Steinbeck

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature. — John Steinbeck

A good writer always works at the impossible.There is another kind who pulls in his horizons, drops his mind as one lowers rifle sights. — John Steinbeck

A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator. — John Steinbeck

A good writer always works at the impossible. — John Steinbeck

What some people find in religion a writer may find in his craft...a kind of breaking through to glory. — John Steinbeck

The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement. — John Steinbeck

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer. — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Quotes About True

It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth. — John Steinbeck

Doc still loved true things but he knew that it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress. — John Steinbeck

[He] fell right into the oldest conviction in the world-- that the girl you are in love with can't possibly be anything but true and honest. — John Steinbeck

Thou mayest rule over sin,' Lee. That's it. I do not believe all men are destroyed. I can name you a dozen who were not, and they are the ones the world lives by. It is true of the spirit as it is true of battles — only the winners are remembered. — John Steinbeck

Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true. — John Steinbeck

I know three things will never be believed - the true, the probable, and the logical — John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck Famous Quotes And Sayings

Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals. — John Steinbeck

If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. — John Steinbeck

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass. — John Steinbeck

It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning. — John Steinbeck

So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda. — John Steinbeck

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts. — John Steinbeck

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east. — John Steinbeck

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him. — John Steinbeck

This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins. — John Steinbeck

We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. — John Steinbeck

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen. — John Steinbeck

No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe — John Steinbeck

The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it. — John Steinbeck

Oh, the strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch! — John Steinbeck

Time is the only critic without ambition. — John Steinbeck

My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day. — John Steinbeck

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck. — John Steinbeck

As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment. — John Steinbeck

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. — John Steinbeck

A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shadows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically. — John Steinbeck

Socialism is just another form of religion, and thus delusional. — John Steinbeck

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. — John Steinbeck

It was a day as different from other days as dogs are from cats and both of them from chrysanthemums or tidal waves or scarlet fever. — John Steinbeck

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. — John Steinbeck

I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments — John Steinbeck

I guess this is why I hate governments, all governments. It is always the rule, the fine print, carried out by fine-print men. There's nothing to fight, no wall to hammer with frustrated fists. — John Steinbeck

Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. — John Steinbeck

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased. — John Steinbeck

No one wants advice -- only corroboration. — John Steinbeck

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat. — John Steinbeck

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other. — John Steinbeck

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession. — John Steinbeck

Once I knew the City very well, spent my attic days there, while others were being a lost generation in Paris, I fledged in San Francisco, climbed its hills. slept in its parks, worked on its docks, marched and shouted in its revolts~ It had been to me in the days of my poverty and it did not resent my temporary solvency. — John Steinbeck

We don't take a trip. A trip takes us. — John Steinbeck

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids. — John Steinbeck

An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion. — John Steinbeck

I've lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate. — John Steinbeck

I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts. — John Steinbeck

We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. — John Steinbeck

One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards. — John Steinbeck

If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much - make it greedy, miserable and sick. — John Steinbeck

Father and son are natural enemies and each is happier and more secure in keeping it that way. — John Steinbeck

A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger then a man on foot. — John Steinbeck

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. — John Steinbeck

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. — John Steinbeck

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. — John Steinbeck

Anything that just costs money is cheap. — John Steinbeck

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. — John Steinbeck

Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it. — John Steinbeck

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it. — John Steinbeck

One can find so many pains when the rain is falling. — John Steinbeck

I remember as a child reading or hearing the words 'The Great Divide' and being stunned by the glorious sound, a proper sound for the granite backbone of a continent. I saw in my mind escarpments rising into the clouds, a kind of natural Great Wall of China. — John Steinbeck

It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself. — John Steinbeck

Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature. — John Steinbeck

To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous. — John Steinbeck

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it. — John Steinbeck

A guy needs somebody―to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick. — John Steinbeck

Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones. — John Steinbeck

Life Lessons by John Steinbeck

1. John Steinbeck's work is often filled with lessons about the importance of understanding and compassion for others, no matter their background or circumstances.
2. He also emphasizes the importance of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, as seen in many of his novels such as The Grapes of Wrath.
3. Finally, Steinbeck's work often highlights the power of hope and the importance of having faith in the future, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.