Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears that the solar system of stars.

And now they were weary and frightened because they had gone against a system they did not understand and it had beaten them. They knew that the team and the wagon were worth much more....

Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane,” he [Ed Ricketts] said. “And children know it too. Adults lay down rules they would not think of following, speak truths they do not believe. And yet...

Viskas nuo žmogaus priklauso. Vienintelė jėga – pats žmogus. Tik juo gali pasikliauti.

Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also––either...

I ain’t never done nothin’ that wasn’t part sin.

It is easy, out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice!

They called him a comical genius and carried his stories carefully home, and they wondered at how the stories spilled out on the way, for they never sounded the same repeated in their own kitchens.

Netikiu už pojūčių ribos egzistuojančia nuojauta, žaibu, vandeniline bomba ar net tokiais daiktais kaip žibutės, žuvų pulkai, bet žinau, kad jie egzistuoja. Netikiu šmėklomis, nors esu jų matęs.

Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.

It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.

Money’s easy to make if it’s money you want. But with a few exceptions people don’t want money. They want luxury, and they want love, and they want admiration.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

Man has a choice and it’s a choice that makes him a man.

It is a rule in paleontology that ornamentation and complication precede extinction. And our mutation, of which the assembly line, the collective farm, the mechanized army, and the mass production of food are evidences or...

…men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them…. In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by...

The Mayor spoke proudly. ‘Yes, they will light it. I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but—I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not...

This time last year I would have run to Sam Hamilton to talk.””Maybe both of us have got a piece of him,” said Lee. Maybe that’s what immortality is.

Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don’t believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.

In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the...

In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind–but he must get there...

Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and...

I wonder about people who say they haven’t time to think. For myself, I can double think. I find that weighing vegetables, passing the time of day with customers, fighting or loving Mary, coping with...

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are...

Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the...

…many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased. I remember a man in Salinas who in his middle years traveled to Honolulu and back, and that journey continued for the...

If a man ordered a beer milkshake he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known.

He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.

There’s a capacity for appetite… that a whole heaven and earth of cake can’t satisfy

I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an’ stuff like that, too; not just word writin’. My ol’ man’ll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa’s gonna...

All this wondering was the weather vane on top of the building of unrest and of discontent

The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was dark inside. He felt his way to the mattress on the floor, and he stretched...

I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer — and what trees and seasons smelled like —...

One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.

We still go where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right.’ – Tom Joad (Jr.)

I always found in myself a dread of west and love of east. Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that morning came over the peaks of the...

Memory of the knife will be gone when the flesh is gone.

Do you know, I am putting off ending this letter as though the end would be the end of something I want to hold on to. That’s not true of course – just a feeling...

How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President himself reads westerns exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence? (John Steinbeck, in a private...

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...

An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There’s a punishment for it, and it’s usually crucifixion.

A reputation for money is almost as negotiable as money itself.

The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man….For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work,...

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris,...

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s...

Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there? Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?No, she said quickly. No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do...

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...

A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn’t say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn’t like you for telling the truth. You had to say...

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes. Results, not causes; results, not causes.