The Grapes of Wrath Quotes

“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 Grapes of Wrath

“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, The Grapes of Wrath

“Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' I thought an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“​There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And the children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill the certificates - died of malnutrition - because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.

...and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“But you can't start over, Only a baby can start over. You and me, Why, we're all that's been.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. 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, The Grapes of Wrath

“Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Behind him hobbled Granma, who had survived only because she was as mean as her husband. She had held her own with a shrill ferocious religiosity that was as lecherous and as savage as anything Grampa could offer. . . As she walked she hiked her Mother Hubbard up to her knees, and she bleated her shrill terrible war cry: "Pu-raise Gawd fur vittory.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshipped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. ... As the day went forward the sun became less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The men sat still - thinking - figuring.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“They's a lot of fellas wanta know what reds is.' He laughed. 'One of our boys from foun' out.' He patted the piled earth gently with his shovel. 'Fella named Hines--got 'bout thirty thousan' acres, peaches and grapes--got a cannery an' a winery. Well, he's all a time talkin' about 'them goddam reds'. 'Goddamn reds is drivin' the country to ruin,' he says, an' 'We got to drive these here red bastards out.'

Well, they were a young fella jus' come out west here, an' he's listenin' one day. He kinda scratched his head an' he says, 'Mr. Hines, I ain't been here long. What is those goddamn reds?'

Well sir, Hines says, 'A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we're payin' twenty-five!"

Well, this young fella he thinks about her, an' he scratches his head, an' he says, 'Well, Jesus, Mr. Hines, I ain't a son-of-a-bitchm but if that's what a red is--why, I want thirty cents an hour.
Every'body does. Hell, Mr. Hines, we're all reds.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Okies--the owners hated them because they knew they were soft and the Okies strong, that they were fed and the Okies hungry; and perhaps the owners had heard from their grandfathers how easy it is to steal land from a soft man if you are fierce and hungry and armed. The owners hated them.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Casy said, "He was foolin', all the time. I think he knowed it. An' Grampa didn' die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the place."

"You sure a that?" Pa cried.

"Why, no. Oh, he was breathin, but he was dead. He was that place, an' he knowed it.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good ‘less it was with the rest, an’ was whole.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Ed ecco cosa puoi sapere per certo: terribile è il tempo in cui l'Uomo non voglia soffrire e morire per un'idea, perché quest'unica qualità è fondamento dell'Uomo, e quest'unica qualità è l'uomo in sé, peculiare nell'universo.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“You're bound to get ideas if you go thinking' about stuff.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Grandpa didn't die tonight. He died the minute you took 'im off the place [...] He was that place, an' he knowed it.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“People moving [...] Movin' cause they got to [...] Movin' cause they want sompin better'n what they got. An' that's the on'y way they'll ever git it.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Fella can get so he misses the noise of a saw mill.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“In 1963 Steinbeck told Caskie Stinnett: "I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it. I take a hell of a long time to get started. The actual writing is the last process." Though Steinbeck actually wrote the novel in ninety-three sittings, it was his way of saying that The Grapes of Wrath was an intuited whole that embodied the form of his devotion. p xxxviii”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“I ain't never done nothin' that wasn't part sin," said John, and he looked at the long wrapped body.

p. 241”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“The dusk passed into dark, and the desert stars came out in the soft sky, stars stabbing and sharp, with few points and rays to them, and the sky was velvet. And the heat changed. While the sun was up, it was a beating, flailing heat, but now the heat came from below, from the earth itself, and the heat was thick and muffling.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“The monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver's hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him--goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an' he foun' he didn' have no soul that was his'n. Says he foun' he jus' got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain't no good, 'cause his little piece of a soul wasn't no good 'less it was with the rest, an' was whole.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Bir adam, bir aile, toprağından atılmıştır; paslı araba yoldan takırdaya takırdaya batıya gitmektedir. Ben toprağımı kaybettim, bir tek traktör toprağımı elimden aldı. Yalnızım ve şaşkınım. Geceleyin bir aile hendekte konaklıyor, yanlarına başka bir aile de geliyor ve çadırlar ortaya çıkıyor. İki adam çömeliyor, kadınlar ve çocuklar dinleniyorlar. İşte düğüm noktası burada. Ey değişimi sevmeyen ve devrimlerden korkanlar!.. Bu çömelen iki adamı birbirinden ayırın. Onları birbirlerinden tiksindirin. Birbirlerinden korkutun, şüphelendirin!.. İşte korktuğunuz şeyin başı bu. Bu zigottur. Çünkü burada, "Ben toprağımı kaybettim!" sözü değişmektedir. Bir hücre parçalanıyor ve bu parçalanmadan sizin hoşlanmadığınız şey doğuyor... "Biz toprağımızı kaybettik!" İşte asıl tehlike burada; çünkü iki adam bir adam gibi yalnız ve şaşkın değildir. Ve bu ilk "biz" den daha tehlikeli bir şey doğmaktadır: "Benim az bir yiyeceğim var" artı, "Benim yiyeceğim yok". Eğer bu problemin tutarı, "Bizim azıcık bir yiyeceğimiz var" olursa, iş yoluna girmiş, hareket yönünü bulmuş demektir. Şimdi artık sadece küçük bir çarpı gerekir ve bu toprak, bu traktör bizimdir. Hendekte çömelen iki adam, küçük bir ateş, bir tek tavada kızaran et, konuşmayan sert bakışlı kadınlar; arkada çocuklar, kafalarının anlamadıkları kelimeleri can kulağıyle dinlemekteler. Gece bastırıyor. Küçük yavru soğuk almış. İşte al şu battaniyeyi. Yündür. Annemin battaniyesiydi... Çocuğun üstüne örtersin. Bu bombalanacak şeydir işte. Bu başlangıcıdır, "ben" den "biz" e geçişin. Başkalarında bulunmayan şeylere sahip olan sizler, eğer bunu anlıyorsanız, kendinizi koruyabilirsiniz. Eğer nedenleri sonuçlarından ayırabilirseniz, eğer Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin'in nedenler değil, sonuçlar olduğunu anlarsanız, yaşamanızı sürdürebilirsiniz. Ama siz, bunu anlayamazsınız. Çünkü mülkiyet sizi sonsuzluğa kadar "ben" olarak dondurmuş ve sonsuzluğa kadar sizi "biz" den ayırmıştır.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath