John Steinbeck
Overview
 
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962....

(1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California, USA....

(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.
Quotations

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.”

“In Awe of Words,” The Exonian, 75th anniversary edition, University of Exeter|Exeter University (1930)

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

“In Awe of Words,” The Exonian, 75th anniversary edition, Exeter University

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.

"...like captured fireflies" (1955); also published in America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (2003), p. 142

One man was so mad at me that he ended his letter: “Beware. You will never get out of this world alive.”

“The Mail I’ve Seen” Saturday Review (3 August 1956)

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

Quote magazine (18 June 1961)

The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business.

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights|The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), but a statement he is first quoted as having made in Newsweek (24 December 1962)

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

New York Times|New York Times (2 June 1969)

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.

New York Times (2 June 1969)

 
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