“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Goals, God, desires
“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, amazon.comTagged: Murder, Death, Healing
“It’s all fine to say, ‘Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away. People will forget’—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Healing, Time, Change
“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: humanity, Point of View, Perspective
“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: humanity, differences, similarities
“People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Dreams, Goals, Fear
“You know how advice is - you only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyways.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Advice, Opinions, agreement
“Grab anything that goes by. It may not come around again.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: opportunities, chances, Life
“In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Money, rich, poor
“You know most people live ninety per cent in the past, seven per cent in the present, and that only leaves them three per cent for the future.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Past, present, Future, Time
“I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir--but I do have a choice of how I do it.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Choices, Living, Death
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Summer, Winter, Happiness, Sadness
“We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Virtue, Honesty, Attention
“I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: romance, Reality, Love
“It's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world. It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Love, Violence, Hate
“But now, by saying what his future was going to be like, he had created it. A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes a along with other realities-never to be destroyed but easily to be attacked.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Future, plans, Goals
“Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Love, Doubts, Dating
“When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something--anything--before it is all gone.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: Sadness, Problems, Stress
“Guy don't need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus' works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain't hardly ever a nice fella.”— John Steinbeck, amazon.comTagged: kindness, Compassion, Intelligence