John Steinbeck citations Page 12

“La notion de seconde prend de plus en plus d'importance dans les activités humaines et bientôt ce sera un dixième de seconde, puis un centième, jusqu'au jour — je ne crois pas qu'il vienne — où l'homme dira : « Et puis, après tout, qu'est-ce qu'une heure dans la vie d'un homme? » Mais cette préoccupation de la fraction de seconde n'est pas ridicule. Un fait qui se produit trop tard ou trop tôt peut dérégler le mécanisme moderne et les perturbations se propagent comme des ronds dans une flaque où l'on a jeté une pierre.”

East of Eden

“Une vérité incroyable peut faire plus de mal qu'un mensonge.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Quatrième partie, Chapitre XLIX

“[…] il n'y a rien de plus triste qu'une amitié qui ne tient plus que par la colle des timbres-poste. Quand on ne veut plus voir, entendre, ou toucher un homme, il vaut mieux rompre les amarres.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Deuxième partie, Chapitre XXII

“J'ai remarqué qu'il n'y avait pas de pire insatisfaction que celle du riche. Gavez un homme, cousez d'or ses vêtements, installez-le dans un palais, et il mourra de désespoir.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Quatrième partie, Chapitre XXXV

“On ne se coupe pas la jambe avec une banane.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Troisième partie, Chapitre XXIV

John Steinbeck Citations

“On ne peut pas faire un cheval de course d'un porc.
— Non, répondit Samuel, mais on peut en faire un porc de course.”

“On ne peut comprendre les gens que si on les sent en soi-même.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Deuxième partie, Chapitre XXII

“Craignez le temps où l’Humanité refusera de souffrir, de mourir pour une idée, car cette seule qualité est le fondement de l’homme même, et cette qualité seule est l’homme, distinct dans tout l’univers.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Quatrième partie, Chapitre XXXVIII

John Steinbeck livre Les Raisins de la colère

Les Raisins de la colère, 1939

“Certaines gens croient que c'est insulter la splendeur de leur maladie que d'aller mieux.”

“Il faut prendre certaines responsabilités lorsque l'on est une personne. Cela ne consiste pas uniquement à prendre la place de l'air dans l'espace. Qui es tu?”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Deuxième partie, Chapitre XXII

“Je sens que je suis un homme, et l'homme est une chose très importante, peut être plus importante qu'une étoile”

East of Eden

“« Voici pour quoi je me battrai : la liberté pour l'esprit de prendre quelque direction qui lui plaise. Et voici contre quoi je me battrai : toute idée, religion ou gouvernement qui limite ou détruit la notion d'individualité. Tel je suis, telle est ma position. Je comprends pourquoi un système conçu dans un gabarit et pour le respect du gabarit se doit d'éliminer la liberté de l'esprit, car c'est elle seule qui, par l'analyse, peut détruire le système. Oui, je comprends cela et je le hais, et je me battrai pour préserver la seule chose qui nous mette au-dessus des bêtes qui ne créent pas. » À l'est d'Éden”

“Il trouva ce qu’il allait faire. Il se dirigea vers sa pile de disques et choisit L’Art de la fugue. « Si son génie ne me donne pas de courage, autant abandonner tout de suite. » Il resta assis, immobile, écoutant Bach construire un monde, le peupler, l’organiser et finalement le combattre et être détruit par lui. Lorsque la musique s’arrêta, comme l’homme s’était arrêté lorsque la mort était venue, Doc avait retrouvé son courage. « Bach s’est battu, dit-il, il n’a pas été vaincu. S’il avait vécu, il aurait continué à se battre. Donnez-moi un peu de temps! Je veux réfléchir. Qu’avait donc Bach que je n’aie pas? N’est-ce pas la vaillance? Est-ce que la vaillance n’est pas la plus belle qualité de l’âme? » Il s’arrêta et eut soudain l’impression qu’il allait fondre en larmes. « Pourquoi ne l’ai-je pas compris tout de suite? Moi qui l’admire tant, je ne l’ai pas décelé quand je l’ai vue. Bach avait son talent, sa famille, ses amis. Chacun a quelque chose. Et Suzy, qu’a-t-elle? Rien, sinon la vaillance. Elle se bat et elle gagnera. Si elle ne gagne pas, la vie ne vaut pas la peine d’être vécue. Qu’est-ce que j’entends par gagner? se demanda Doc. Je sais. Pour gagner, il suffit de ne pas être vaincu." Tendre Jeudi, John Steinbeck.”

“Prenez-vous plaisir à souffrir? demanda Samuel. Vous voyez-vous grand et tragique? — Je ne sais pas.”

“Il y a un meurtrier en chacun de nous, dit le shérif. Trouvez la détente et le coup partira.”

Pensez-y. Peut-être jouez-vous un rôle sur une grande scène devant une salle vide.
À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Troisième partie, Chapitre XXIV

“Allons, dit Lennie, comment que ça sera? On aura une petite ferme.”

À l'est d'Éden, 1952, Deuxième partie, Chapitre XVIII

John Steinbeck livre Des souris et des hommes

Des souris et des hommes, 1937

John Steinbeck: Citations en anglais

“Life could not change the sun or water the desert, so it changed itself.”

“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. [Opening sentence. ]”

Pt. 3
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)

“I do understand. I understand that you are offered a loveliness and you vomit on it, that you have the gift of love given you such as few men have ever known and you throw on it the acid of your pride, your ugly twisted sense of importance.”

John Steinbeck livre Cannery Row

Cannery Row (1945)

“Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.”

John Steinbeck livre Burning Bright

Friend Ed to Joe Saul in Act Three, Scene I: The Sea
Burning Bright (1950)

“When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find himself a good and sufficient reason for going.”

John Steinbeck livre The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XIII

“Strength and success— they are above morality, above criticism. It seems then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it.”

Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)

“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.”

John Steinbeck livre The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XIII

“In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.”

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

“No one knows how greatness comes to a man. It may lie in his blackness, sleeping, or it may lance into him like those driven fiery particles from outer space. These things, however, are known about greatness: need gives it life and puts it in action; it never comes without pain; it leaves a man changed, chastened, and exalted at the same time — he can never return to simplicity.”

New York Times (2 June 1969)

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

John Steinbeck livre Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday (1954), Ch. 36

“If lowborn men could stand up to those born to rule, religion, government, the whole world would fall to pieces…[Merlin replies]…So it would; so it will … then the pieces will be put together again by such as destroyed it.”

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

“Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I know beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.”

John Steinbeck livre The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

“I can remember the horror which came over my parents when they became convinced that it was so with me [that I wanted to be a writer]—and properly so. What you have and they had to look forward to is life made intolerable by a mean, cantankerous, opinionated, moody, quarrelsome, unreasonable, nervous, flighty, irresponsible son. You will get no loyalty, little consideration and desperately little attention from him. In fact you will want to kill him. I'm sure my father and mother often must have considered poisoning me.”

Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)

“I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand.”

Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 45 (1969)

“For a while I was a vicious fighter but it wasn't to win. It was to get it over and get the hell out of there. And I never would have done it at all if other people hadn't put me in the ring. The only private fights I ever had were those I couldn't get away from.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men (1937), Ch. 4, p. 75

“The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the townlets wither a time and die. This is not offered in criticism but only as observation. And I am sure that, as all pendulums reverse their swing, so eventually will the swollen cities rupture like dehiscent wombs and disperse their children back to the countryside.”

Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 45 (1969)

“A man is a lonely thing.”

Pt. 2
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)

“This is the law. The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplementary.”

John Steinbeck livre The Winter of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), unplaced by chapter

“If we could learn to like ourselves, even a little, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away.”

King Arthur and his Noble Knights (1976)

“Can you disbelieve in something you don't know about?[…] It isn't that I don't believe but that I don't know.”

“I don't anticipate trouble and so I anticipate trouble.”

John Steinbeck livre The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter V

“I have known many people to ask for advice but very few who wanted it and none who followed it.”

John Steinbeck livre The Short Reign of Pippin IV

The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957)

“It is a matter of disillusion to young male Americans otherwise informed, to discover that the French are a moral people — judged, that is, by American country-club standards.”

John Steinbeck livre The Short Reign of Pippin IV

The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957)

“The things everyone knows are most likely to be wrong.”

John Steinbeck livre The Short Reign of Pippin IV

The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957)

“Most people live in a half-dream all their lives and call it reality.”

John Steinbeck livre The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XIX

“Writers are a sorry lot. The best you can say of them is that they are better than actors and that's not much.”

John Steinbeck livre The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis (25 July 1959)
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

“An artist should be open on all sides to every kind of light and darkness.”

John Steinbeck livre The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Appendix, letter to Chase Horton (8 June 1959)
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

“One of the greatest errors in the reconstruction of another era lies in our tendency to think of them as being like ourselves in feeling and attitudes. Actually, without considerable study on the part of a present-day man — if he were confronted by a fifteenth-century man — there would be no possible communication. I think it is possible through knowledge and discipline for a modern man to understand, and, to a certain extent, live into a fifteenth-century mind, but the reverse would be completely impossible.”

John Steinbeck livre The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis and Chase Horton (20 April 1959)
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

“In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.”

John Steinbeck livre The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis and Chase Horton (14 March 1958)
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

“Some people there are who, being grown, forget the horrible task of learning to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he must do it as a child. An adult is rarely successful in the undertaking — the reduction of experience to a set of symbols. For a thousand thousand years these humans have existed and they have only learned this trick — this magic — in the final ten thousand of the thousand thousand.”

John Steinbeck livre The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Merlin to King Arthur in "The Death of Merlin"
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)