John Steinbeck's "The Winter of Our Discontent" Quotes Archives

To be alive at all is to have scars.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

I know three things will never be believed - the true, the probable, and the logical
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Margie had known many men, most of them guilty, wounded in their vanity, or despairing, so that she had developed a contempt for her quarry as a professional hunter of vermin does. It was easy to move such men through their fears and their vanities. They ached so to be fooled that she no longer felt triumph--only a kind of disgusted pity.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

We can shoot rockets into space but we can't cure anger or discontent.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Misfortune is a fact of nature acceptable to women, especially when it falls on other women.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

What a frightening thing is the human, a mass of gauges and dials and registers, and we can only read a few and those perhaps not accurately.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Are cats strange animals or do they so resemble us that we find them curious as we do monkeys?
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something--anything--before it is all gone.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Arkana bakma, biri aray? kapat?yor olabilir...
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

I.çimden eve gitmek istiyorum, dedim..
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Nobody changes. Nobody gets hurt.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

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.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Can you honestly love a dishonest thing?
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

I.nsan düs,ünerek yas,am?n? yoluna koyabilir mi, yoksa her s,eyi ak?s,?na m? b?rakmal??
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind--but he must get there first.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Fark bir kis,idedir, tek bas,?na bir kis,ide... Yegane güç, bir tek sendedir. Bas,ka hiçbir s,eye güvenemezsin.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

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. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

It was a day as different from other days as dogs are from cats and both of them from chrysanthemums or tidal waves or scarlet fever.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"

The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it.
—John Steinbeck, "The Winter of Our Discontent"