Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing. John Steinbeck More Quotes by John Steinbeck More Quotes From John Steinbeck I'll want to hear,' Samuel said. 'I eat stories like grapes. John Steinbeck stories want said He never fell, never slipped back, never flew. John Steinbeck flew So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out. John Steinbeck lovely want world He saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder if I've missed this, what else have I failed to see? John Steinbeck discovery men reality It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. John Steinbeck devil angel eden For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland. John Steinbeck yellowstone civilization america [Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing. John Steinbeck angel men son He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time. John Steinbeck drank too-much These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new. John Steinbeck mind advice thinking Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. John Steinbeck wrath work men Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. John Steinbeck hoarse-voice feet hair Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic. John Steinbeck republic syntax lad I have owed you this letter for a very long time-but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool. John Steinbeck tools literature long Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him. John Steinbeck clothes business men Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped? John Steinbeck eggs shapes baby I think there must have been some other girl printed somewhere in his heart, for he was a man of love and his wife was not a woman to show her feelings. John Steinbeck girl heart men This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal. John Steinbeck men son thinking 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 monsters men sex The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels. John Steinbeck singing men thinking But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there. John Steinbeck cat men thinking
