17 John Steinbeck Quotes That Are as True Now as They Were Then

John Ernst Steinbeck (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was a renowned American writer. Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature for his “realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” Steinbeck also had a larger-than-life reputation for his ability to write letters like no other.

Over his writing career Steinbeck would go on to write 33 books, with one of these books being coauthored alongside Edward Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. Steinbeck was prolific in every sense of the word. Some of his most famous works included the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and also Of Mice and Men (1937). All of these works being considered, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is viewed as his ultimate masterpiece. In fact, by the book’s 75th anniversary publishing date, it had sold upwards of 14 million copies.

So let’s look at some John Steinbeck quotes that truly stand the test of time.

1. On a person’s journey

“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.”

2. On prophecies and magic

“Like most modern people, I don’t believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it.”

3. On discontentedness

“We can shoot rockets into space but we can’t cure anger or discontent.”

4. On the truth

“I know three things will never be believed – the true, the probable, and the logical.”

5. On forgetfulness

“I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.”

6. On life

“To be alive at all is to have scars.”

7. On irresolution

“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.”

8. On not being present

“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.”

9. On advice

“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.”

10. On meeting someone new

“When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.”

11. On people’s lack of curiosity

“For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.”

12. On not being overly ambitious

“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away You must want it just enough.”

13. On people’s personality preferences

“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”

14. On bragging

“Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.”

15. On angels and devils

“It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.”

16. On seizing the moment

“I guess I’m trying to say, grab anything that goes by. It may not come around again.”

17. On not bringing others down with you

“Don’t make everyone know about your sadness.”