John Steinbeck Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

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

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.

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.

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

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Books are the best friends you can have; they inform you, and entertain you, and they don’t talk back.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.

Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens – The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.