"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 to the world."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

"A man without words is a man without thought."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

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

"The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

"I know this … a man got to do what he got to do."
— John Steinbeck

"chuckling—the sound he made when any force in the world defeated him. He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat."
— John Steinbeck

"life passes by in a wink so try to never miss a moment of it"
— John Steinbeck

"There are two kinds of people in the world, observers and non-observers..."
— John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley: In Search of America)

"The fool supply was controlled..."
— John Steinbeck (The Moon Is Down)

"Somehow they felt they were living in a moment when history pauses and takes stock and changes course."
— John Steinbeck

"Within that frame he went a long way and burned a deep scar."
— John Steinbeck

"“It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.”"
— John Steinbeck (Cannery Row)

"He was born in fury and he lived in lightning. Tom came headlong into life. He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them. When he read his father's books, he was the first. He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day. His mind plunged like a colt in a happy pasture, and when later the world put up fences, he plunged against the wire, and when the final stockade surrounded him, he plunged right through it and out. And as he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

"It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it and it's usually crucifixion."
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

"He did not know, and perhaps this doctor did. And he could not take the chance of pitting his certain ignorance against this man's possible knowledge. He was trapped as his people were always trapped, and would be until, as he had said, they could be sure that the things in the books ere really in the books."
— John Steinbeck (The Pearl)

"It's like a life--so quickly when we don't watch it and so slowly when we do."
— John Steinbeck

"Maybe you've tumbled a world for me. And I don't know what I can build in my world's place."
— John Steinbeck

"At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.""
— John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

"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

"No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself."
— John Steinbeck (The Winter of Our Discontent)

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