Sweet Thursday Quotes

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“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

“Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Now discontent nibbled at him - not painfully, but constantly. 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 end of life is now not so terribly far away - you can see it the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch - and your mind says, "Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough?" All of these, of course, are the foundation of man's greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. "What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me?" And now we're coming to the wicked, poisoned dart: "What have I contributed in the Great Ledger? What am I worth?" And this isn't vanity or ambition. Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man. If he ignores the debt it poisons him, and if he tries to make payments the debt only increases, and the quality of his gift is the measure of the man.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“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.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Well, I remember this girl. I am not whole without her. I am not alive without her. When she was with me I was more alive than I have ever been, and not only when she was pleasant either. Even when we were fighting I was whole.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“I live alone," he said simply. "I live in the open. I hear the waves at night and see the black patterns of the pine boughs against the sky. With sound and silence and color and solitude, of course I see visions. Anyone would."

"But you don't believe in them?" Doc asked hopefully.

"I don't find it a matter for belief or disbelief," the seer said. "You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks into the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself everytime that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it? Don't you see visions?"

"No," said Doc.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“This is the greatest mystery of the human mind--the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irrelevancies relate, dissonance becomes harmony, and nonsense wears a crown of meaning. But the clarifying leap springs from the rich soil of confusion, and the leaper is not unfamiliar with pain.”
― John Steinbeck , Sweet Thursday

“It is better to sit in appreciative contemplation of a world in which beauty is eternally supported on a foundation of ugliness: cut out the support, and beauty will sink from sight.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Some days are born ugly. From the very first light they are no damn good what ever the weather, and everbody knows it. No one knows what causes this, but on such a day people resist getting out of bed and set their heels against the day. When they are finally forced out by hunger or job they find that the day is just as lousy as they knew it would be.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“S-l-o-w-ness--it gave meaning to everything. It made everything royal.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“It is a cosmic joke. Preoccupation with survival has set the stage for extinction.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“I guess a man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, and then steps in it.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“It was a matter of some sorrow to Fauna that she didn't entirely believe in astrology, but she had found that nearly everyone wants to believe that the stars take notice of us.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Guy knows all about women he don’t know nothing about a woman.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Change may be announced by a small ache, so that you think you're catching a cold. Or you may feel a faint disgust for something you loved yesterday. It may even take the form of a hunger that peanuts will not satisfy. Isn't overeating said to be one of the strongest symptoms of discontent? And isn't discontent the lever of change?”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“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.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“I guess she's just nuts,' he said. 'And if she's nuts, a guy's got to do nuts things. You don't think you could say the hell with her?”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“You can only fight Fate so far, and when you give in to it you're very strong; because all of your force flows in one direction.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Doc turned in the seat and looked back. The disappearing sun shone on his laughing face, his gay and eager face. With his left hand he held the bucking steering wheel.

Cannery Row looked after the ancient car. It made the first turn and was gone from sight behind a warehouse just as the sun was gone.

Fauna said, 'I wonder if I'd be safe to put up her gold star tonight. What the hell's the matter with you, Mack?'

Mack said, 'Vice is a monster so frightful of mien, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.' He put his arm around Hazel's shoulders. 'I think you'd of made a hell of a president,' he said.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Doc was more than first citizen of Cannery Row.
He was healer of the wounded soul and the cut finger.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“What are you looking for, little man? Is it yourself you’re trying to identify?Are you looking at little things to avoid big things?”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Doc bought a package of yellow pads and two dozen pencils. He laid them out on his desk, the pencils sharpened to needle points and lined up like yellow soldiers. At the top of a page he printed: OBSERVATIONS AND SPECULATIONS. His pencil point broke. He took up another and drew lace around the O and the B, made a block letter of the S and put fish hooks on each end. His ankle itched. He rolled down his sock and scratched, and that made his ear itch. “Someone’s talking about me,” he said and looked at the yellow pad. He wondered whether he had fed the cotton rats. It is easy to forget when you’re thinking.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“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, Sweet Thursday

“The pictures were designed to soothe without arousing interest – engravings of cows in ponds, deer in streams, dogs in lakes. Wet animals seem to serve some human need.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“— Добре, да го оженим — каза Фауна.
— О, не! Не бих сторил такова нещо! Особено пък на Док!”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“Винаги ми се е виждало странно… — поде Док. — Качествата, които ценим у човека — доброта и щедрост, откритост, честност, разбиране и чувство, — всички те съпътствуват неудачите в нашата система. А ония черти, които презираме — нетърпимостта, алчността лакомията, низостта, егоизма, — те са пътят към успеха. И макар хората да се възхищават от стойността на първите, те всъщност обичат плодовете на последните.

— Че кой ще ти иска да бъде добър, ако за това трябва да гладува! — подхвърли Ричард Фрост.

— Но тук не става дума за глад! То е нещо съвършено различно. Да продаваш човешките души, за да спечелиш света, е нещо от край до край доброволно и едва ли не повсеместно… но не съвсем. Такива като Мак и момчетата има навсякъде по света.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday

“I want to take everything I've seen and thought and learned and reduce them and relate them and refine them until I have something of meaning, something of use. And I can't seem to do it.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday