“Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“The flies have conquered the flypaper.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir--but I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very brave man will have made them a little braver.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Defeat is a momentary thing. A defeat doesn't last. We were defeated and now we attack. Defeat means nothing. Can't you understand that? Do you know what they are whispering behind doors?”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“In marching, in mobs, in football games, and in war, outlines become vague; real things become unreal and a fog creeps over the mind. Tension and excitement, weariness, movement--all merge in one great gray dream, so that when it is over, it is hard to remember how it was when you killed men or ordered them to be killed. Then other people who were not there tell you what it was like and you say vaguely, "yes, I guess that's how it was.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“I'm tired of people who have not been at war who know all about it.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but I do have a choice of how I do it.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“They think that just because they have only one leader and one head, we are all like that. They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“war is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed except for new weariness and new hatreds.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Only once or twice in her life had she ever understood all of him, but the part of him which she knew, she knew intricately and well. No little appetite or pain, no carelessness or meanness in him escaped her; no thought or dream or longing in him ever reached her. And yet several times in her life she had seen the stars.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Lanser said, "There are no peaceful people, when will you learn it? There are no friendly people, can't you understand that?”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn’t of much importance. Most of your orders will be unpleasant, but that’s not your business.They should’ve trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led along with lies.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“And the girl,' Lanser continued, 'the girl, Lieutenant, you may rape her, or protect her, or marry her--that is of no importance so long as you shoot her when it is ordered.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“That is a great mystery,” said Doctor Winter. “That is a mystery that has disturbed rulers all over the world—how the people know. It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control. It is a great mystery.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“The Mayor spoke proudly. 'Yes, they will light it. I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but—I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very brae man will have made them a little braver.' He smiled apologetically. 'You see, it is an easy thing to do, since the end for me is the same.'
Lanser said, "If you say yes, we can tell them you said no. We can tell them you begged for your life.'
And Winter broke in angrily, 'They would know. You do not keep secrets. One of your men got out of hand one night and he said the flies had conquered the flypaper, and now the whole nation knows his words. They have made a song of it. The flies have conquered the flypaper. You do not keep secrets, Colonel.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“And the hatred was deep in the eyes of the people, beneath the surface.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Joseph habitually scowled at furniture, expecting it to be impertinent, mischievous, or dusty.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“If he considered God at all, he thought of Him as an old and honored general, retired and gray, living among remembered battles and putting wreaths on the graves of his lieutenants several times a year.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Lanser had been in Belgium and France twenty years before and he tried not to think what he knew—that war is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed except for new weariness and new hatreds.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Captain Loft believed that all women fall in love with a uniform and he did not see how it could be otherwise.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“That is a mystery that has disturbed rulers all over the world—how the people know. It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control. It is a great mystery.” The”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“The gilded chairs covered with their worn tapestry were set about stiffly like too many servants with nothing to do.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“[O]nly Colonel Lanser knew what war really is in the long run . . . and he tried not to think what he knew--that war is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed except for a new weariness and new hatreds.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that is so, sir.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
John Steinbeck
Born place: in Salinas Valley, California, The United States
Born date February 27, 1902
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“Man can never know the loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in the woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. Woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which she is bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love a taking of man within her, an act of birth and rebirth, of child rearing and man bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to be. But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment man rests inside of her.”
― Anaïs Nin, quote from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“ Less possessing-less possessed.
More possessing-more possessed.
More possessed-less accessed.
Less possessed-more accessed.”
― Mikhail Naimy, quote from The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark
“He will be sure to give us rest soon.”
― quote from Little Pilgrim's Progress: From John Bunyan's Classic
“People, he told her, are shaped somehow by their climate and the land they live in. Those who live by the sea are like the currents and tides; they go and come, and discover many shores. Their words and loves are like water that slips between one's fingers and is never still. Mountain people have fought the mountain to win their place. Once they have conquered it they protect their mountain, and others coming from far below in the valley risk being seen as enemies. Hill people take some time before greeting each other.”
― Gil Courtemanche, quote from A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
“Song-Mi Lee,...her life wholly dedicated to protecting the great man against the importunities of the academic world and soothing his despair at no longer being able to achieve an erection or an original thought.”
― David Lodge, quote from Small World
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Fifteen Dogs
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