“No matter how good a man is, there's always some horse can pitch him.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“It would be a dreadful thing to tell anyone about it, for it would destroy some fragile structure of truth. It was truth that might be shattered by division.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“It became his habit to creep out of bed even before his mother was awake, to slip into his clothes and to go quietly down to the barn to see Gabilan. In the grey quiet mornings when the land and the brush and the houses and the trees were silver-grey and black like a photograph negative, he stole toward the barn, past the sleeping stones and the sleeping cypress tree. The turkeys, roosting in the tree out of coyotes' reach, clicked drowsily. The fields glowed with a grey frost-like light and in the dew the tracks of rabbits and of field mice stood out sharply. The good dogs came stiffly out of their little houses, hackles up and deep growls in their throats. Then they caught Jody's scent, and their stiff tails rose up and waved a greeting Doubletree Mutt with the big thick tail, and Smasher, the incipient shepherd-then went lazily back to their warm beds. It was a strange time and a mysterious journey, to Jody -an extension of a dream. When he first had the pony he liked to torture himself during the trip by thinking Gabilan would not be in his stall, and worse, would never have been there. And he had other delicious little self-induced pains. ”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“The bird looked much smaller dead than alive. Jody felt a little mean pain in his stomach, so he took out his pocketknife and cut off the bird's head. Then he disemboweled it, and took off its wings; and finally he threw all the pieces into the brush. He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it; he was ashamed because of their potential opinion.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?"
Gitano shook his head slowly. "No, I walked down the Salinas Valley."
The afternoon thought would not let Joey go. "Did you ever go into the big mountains back there?"
The old dark eyes grew fixed, and their light turned inward on the years that were living in Gitano's head.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“The old man slowly unwrapped the shining blade and let the lamplight slip along it for a moment. Then he wrapped it up again. 'You go now. I want to go to bed. He blew out the lamp almost before Jody had closed the door.
As he went back towards the house, Jody knew one thing more sharply than he had ever known anything. He must never tell anyone about the rapier. It would be a dreadful thing to tell anyone about it, for it would destroy some fragile structure of truth. It was truth that might be shattered by division.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“On the fences the shiny blackbirds with red epaulets clicked their dry call. The meadowlarks sang like water, and the wild doves, concealed among the bursting leaves of the oaks, made a sound of restrained grieving.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“Why, a trick horse is kind of like an actor—no dignity, no character of his own.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“I tell those stories, but they're not what I want to tell. I only know how I want people to feel when I tell them. It wasn't Indians that were important, nor adventures, nor even getting out here. It was a whole bunch of people made into one big crawling beast. And I was the head. It was westering and westering. Every man wanted something for himself, but the big beast that was all of them wanted only westering.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
“He leaned his flail against the steps. ‘That’s to drive the mice out,’ he said. ‘I’ll bet they’re fat. I’ll bet they don’t know what’s going to happen to them today.’
‘No, nor you either,’ Billy remarked philosophically, ‘nor me, nor anyone.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Red Pony
John Steinbeck
Born place: in Salinas Valley, California, The United States
Born date February 27, 1902
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“Given that the majority of communication to which we are subjected in a day consists of advertising, if nearly all of that advertising insists on regarding us as pampered children, what does that do to us? It winds us up with a godforsaken second term of smarmy granddad President Ronald Wilson Reagan for one.”
― Kathleen Rooney, quote from Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
“EVERY STORY HAS AN ANTAGONIST and a protagonist. Hero and villain. Good and evil. Yada, yada, yada. Thing is, I bet in each story the villain doesn’t consider themselves the epitome of evil. Even the evilest of minds have justification for their acts. They’re the hero of their own story; it just depends on where you stand. I”
― Anne Malcom, quote from Fatal Harmony
“Perhaps one day the man in the black jacket will think about this too: why he only wondered if it was Kevin or Amat who was telling the truth. Why Maya’s word wasn’t enough.”
― Fredrik Backman, quote from Beartown
“Many people who have progressively lowered their personal standards in an attempt to win social acceptance and life’s comforts bitterly resent those of philosophical bent who refuse to compromise their spiritual ideals and who seek to better themselves.”
― Epictetus, quote from The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness
“And so I began to read,' Sorkar said. 'And at first the complete works were like a jungle, the language was quicksand. Metaphors turned beneath my feet and became biting snakes, similes fled from my grasp like frightened deer, taking all meaning with them. All was alien, and amidst the hanging, entangling creepers of this foreign grammar, all sound became a cacophany. I feared for myself, for my health and sanity, but then I thought of my purpose, of where I was and who I was, of pain and I pressed on.”
― Vikram Chandra, quote from Red Earth and Pouring Rain
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