Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

John Steinbeck

Categorized in : America Roots Usa

A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.

odor flavor kind

How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise - the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream - be set down alive?

quality light dream

Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. by John Steinbeck

Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.

great-writing writers-and-writing whole

I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.

men memories fall

We have to make a mark, even if it's only a scribble. by John Steinbeck

We have to make a mark, even if it's only a scribble.

scribbles mark challenges

The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-"The sky is falling," cried Henny-Penny, "and a piece of it fell on my tail.

tails sky fall

I think I love you, Cal." -Abra I'm not good." -Cal Because you'r... by John Steinbeck

I think I love you, Cal." -Abra I'm not good." -Cal Because you're not good." -Abra

abra love-you thinking

The dairy man had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and he must have had some training in philosophy. He liked what he was doing and he didn't want to be somewhere else - one of the few contented people I met in my whole journey.

learning philosophy science

A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the rive... by John Steinbeck

A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.

herons air rivers

The study of history, while it does not endow with prophecy, may... by John Steinbeck

The study of history, while it does not endow with prophecy, may indicate lines of probability.

lines doe may

Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while... by John Steinbeck

Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.

alive play long

Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry peopl... by John Steinbeck

Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.

fighting people looks

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?

ocean dust light

The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index.

mountain use way

Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em. by John Steinbeck

Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em.

mice ems trouble

But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.

unique eden soul

I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. by John Steinbeck

I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere.

dark

Ever'body's askin' that. "What we comin' to?" Seems to me we don't never come to nothin'. Always on the way.

body literature way

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? You only truly, deeply appreciate and are grateful for something when you compare and contrast it to something worse.

gratitude grateful summer

A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then-the glory-so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished.

eye dark song