-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath
(1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men
(1937). He was an author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories; Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr.
We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — ”Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.”
The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
One man was so mad at me that he ended his letter: “Beware. You will never get out of this world alive.”
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business.
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.
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.