Quotes by Famous Americans Past and Present
|
Quotes by Famous Americans Past and Present
|
|
|
John Steinbeck Quotes Click here for John Steinbeck books John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography "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." "Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard." "The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty." "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." "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 President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else." "We subject [the President] and his family to close and constant scrutiny and denounce them for things that we ourselves do every day. A Presidential slip of the tongue, a slight error in judgment — social, political, or ethical — can raise a storm of protest. We give the President more work than a man can do, more responsibility than a man should take, more pressure than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him up, eat him up. And with all this, Americans have a love for the President that goes beyond loyalty or party nationality; he is ours, and we exercise the right to destroy him." "A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." "Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments." "The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost." "And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about." "Such is the prestige of the Nobel award and of this place where I stand that I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession and in the great and good men who have practiced it through the ages." "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 convey of generalities. A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner." "I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." "With humanity's long proud history of standing firm against natural enemies, sometimes in the face of almost certain defeat and extinction, we would be cowardly and stupid to leave the field on the eve of our greatest potential victory." "It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." "This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future, turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me." "There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don’t mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that’s the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln." "Time is the only critic without ambition." "No one wants advice, only corroboration." |
|
[Blog] [Guestbook] [Forums] [World History Quotes]
Your donation helps us provide this information for free. Thanks for your support!
|
