187 quotes
Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Mary — do you hear? Who are you in there?
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.
Cannery Row (1945)
Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Can you disbelieve in something you don't know about? […] It isn't that I don't believe but that I don't know.
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power.
The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957)
It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.
You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
[On writing:] It is properly called the lonesomest profession in the world.
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)
… we've got so many laws you can't breathe without breaking something.
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
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.
Writers at Work (1977)
He was very rich, he bought eggs to throw at a Chinaman. And one of those eggs missed the Chinaman and hit a policeman. So, Danny was in jail.
Tortilla Flat (1935)
... the writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.
Journal of a Novel (1969)
Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. And there’s an opening covey of generalities. A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner.
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man — and the Word is with Men.
Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1962)
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.
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. … Try to understand each other.
Oh! the incidents all happened but — I'm not telling as much of the truth about them as I know.
Are cats strange animals or do they so resemble us that we find them curious as we do monkeys?
The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.