70 Great John Steinbeck Quotes

Last updated on Feb 27th, 2023

70 Great John Steinbeck Quotes

John Ernst Steinbeck (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. Born in Salinas, California, Steinbeck spent most of his life in Monterey County. After dropping out of college (Stanford University), he worked as a manual laborer to support himself as a freelance writer.

John Steinbeck is widely known for the comic novel Tortilla Flat (1935), the novella Of Mice and Men (1937), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning and his finest novel, The Grapes of Wrath (1935). The Grapes of Wrath has sold over 14 million copies in the past 75 years. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Other significant works are Cannery Row (1945), In Dubious Battle (1936), The Red Pony (1937), and East of Eden (1952).

During his lifetime, Steinbeck wrote over twenty books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and several collections of short stories.

Table of Contents
  1. Best John Steinbeck Quotes
  2. John Steinbeck Quotes about Writing
  3. John Steinbeck Quotes on Men
  4. John Steinbeck Quotes about Relationship
  5. John Steinbeck Quotes on Sleep
  6. John Steinbeck Quotes about Travel and Truth

Best John Steinbeck Quotes

1

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.Interview with a Best-Selling Author: John Steinbeck by Robert van Gelder, Cosmopolitan (April 1947), Page 18

2

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power.The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957), Page 102

3

No one wants advice – only corroboration.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter VI, Page 93

4

A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it.Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), Part IV, Page 236

All great and precious things are lonely. - John Steinbeck (East of Eden Quotes)
5

All great and precious things are lonely.East of Eden (1952), Part IV, Chapter 47, Section 2, Page 523

6

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.East of Eden (1952), Part III, Chapter 23, Section 2, Page 287

7

If you’re in trouble or hurt or need – go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Chapter 26, Page 513

8

A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), Part II, Page 44

9

It is a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it.East of Eden (1952), Part I, Chapter 6, Section 2, Page 47

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway. - John Steinbeck (The Winter of Our Discontent Quotes)
10

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter IX, Page 129

11

Time is the only critic without ambition.Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews (1976), On Critics, Page 202

12

A little hope, even hopeless hope, never hurt anybody.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter V, Page 77

13

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.As quoted by John Kenneth Galbraith in the Introduction to The Affluent Society (1977), John Kenneth Galbraith describes a chance meeting with Steinbeck in an airport in 1958.

14

All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.Once There Was A War (1958), An Introduction, Page xx

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. - John Steinbeck (The Winter of Our Discontent Quotes)
15

It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XXII, Page 281

16

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.Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), Part III, Page 164

17

The free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 13, Section 1, Page 132

18

We’ve got so many laws you can’t breathe without breaking something.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XIV, Page 207

19

If the glory can be killed, we are lost.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 13, Section 1, Page 132

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 (Travels with Charley: In Search of America Quotes)
20

This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me.Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), Part III, Page 185

21

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Chapter 25, Page 477

22

Strength and success – they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XIII, Page 186

23

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.America and Americans (1966), Page 29

24

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.Sweet Thursday (1954), Chapter 3, Page 22

We should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. - John Steinbeck (East of Eden Quotes)
25

We should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.East of Eden (1952), Part IV, Chapter 34, Page 415

26

To be alive at all is to have scars.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter VI, Page 92

27

Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.The Pearl (1947), Chapter III, Page 49

28

A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.East of Eden (1952), Part I, Chapter 9, Section 3, Page 96

29

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 13, Section 1, Page 132

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not. - John Steinbeck (The Winter of Our Discontent Quotes)
30

All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XI, Page 162

31

Somewhere in the world there is defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), Page 44

32

Not only the brave get killed, but the brave have a better chance at it.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XIV, Page 203

33

If lowborn men could stand up to those born to rule, religion, government, the whole world would fall to pieces.The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), Page 184

34

Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.East of Eden (1952), Part I, Chapter 7, Section 1, Page 55

An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. - John Steinbeck (The Log from the Sea of Cortez Quotes)
35

An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions.The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951), Chapter 16, Page 166

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36

There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 15, Section 2, Page 165

37

When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 22, Section 3, Page 262

38

No one who is young is ever going to be old.East of Eden (1952), Part I, Chapter 9, Section 1, Page 91

John Steinbeck Quotes about Writing

39

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.Letter to Pascal Covici (September 3, 1951)

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. - John Steinbeck Quotes
40

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.The Art of Fiction No. 45, Interviewed by Nathaniel Benchley (Issue no 48, Fall 1969)

41

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.Letter to Pascal Covici (January 29, 1951)

42

The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business.Newsweek (December 24, 1962)

43

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.John Stenbeck Says Changes Put World in Shock by Hal Boyle in The Associated Press (1961)

44

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed.Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 10, 1962)

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation. - John Steinbeck Quotes
45

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit – for gallantry in defeat – for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 10, 1962)

46

A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly.Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews (1976), On Publishing, Page 199

47

To finish is 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.The Art of Fiction No. 45, Interviewed by Nathaniel Benchley (Issue no 48, Fall 1969)

48

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.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter V, Page 69

John Steinbeck Quotes on Men

49

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter III, Page 44

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 (Sweet Thursday Quotes)
50

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.Sweet Thursday (1954), Chapter 3, Page 20

51

A man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, and then steps in it.Sweet Thursday (1954), Chapter 24, Page 159

52

For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Chapter 14, Page 205

53

The misery stayed, not thought about but aching away, and sometimes I would have to ask myself, Why do I ache? Men can get used to anything, but it takes time.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter VIII, Page 123

54

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.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter V, Page 77

The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. - John Steinbeck (Cannery Row Quotes)
55

The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.Cannery Row (1945), Chapter 23, Page 150

56

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.Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews (1976), On Intent, Page 195

57

We are no better than the animals; in fact in a lot of ways we aren’t as good.The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951), Chapter 9, Page 69

58

People like you to be something, preferably what they are.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 22, Section 4, Page 266

59

No matter how good a man is, there’s always some horse can pitch him.The Red Pony (1937), Chapter I, Page 30

John Steinbeck Quotes about Relationship

What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster. - John Steinbeck (East of Eden Quotes)
60

What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.East of Eden (1952), Part I, Chapter 8, Section 1, Page 75

61

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.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part I, Chapter IV, Page 60

62

There’s nobody as lonely as an all-married man.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XXI, Page 273

63

In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. 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 nearly always leads to love.Noted in a 1938 journal entry. Quoted in the Introduction to a 1994 edition of Of Mice and Men by Susan Shillinglaw.

John Steinbeck Quotes on Sleep

64

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.Sweet Thursday (1954), Chapter 20, Page 129

People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all. - John Steinbeck (The Winter of Our Discontent Quotes)
65

People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don’t dream at all.The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part II, Chapter XIX, Page 250

66

Failures dulled and the future was no threat. And hunger did not skulk about, but the world was soft and easy, and a man could reach the place he started for. The stars came down wonderfully close and the sky was soft. Death was a friend, and sleep was death’s brother.The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Chapter 23, Page 447

John Steinbeck Quotes about Travel and Truth

67

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), Part I, Page 4

68

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962), Part I, Page 4

69

It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There’s a punishment for it, and it’s usually crucifixion.East of Eden (1952), Part II, Chapter 22, Section 3, Page 264)

There's more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty. - John Steinbeck (East of Eden Quotes)
70

There’s more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty.East of Eden (1952), Part III, Chapter 28, Section 2, Page 360