Quotes By John Steinbeck

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.

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 on the world.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

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