“There are some times...when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life. While there remains even a plaintive memory, a person cannot be cut off, dead. And he thought, “It’s a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man’s life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“I should have known […] I am the rain. […] I am the land […] and I am the rain. The grass will grow out of me in a little while.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“ لا يموت الإنسان ما دام له أثر لم يمت ”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“The first grave. Now we're getting someplace. Houses and children and graves, that's home, Tom. Those are the things that hold a man down.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Rama continued: “I do not know whether there are men born outside humanity, or whether some men are so human as to make others seem unreal. Perhaps a godling lives on earth now and then. Joseph has strength beyond vision of shattering, he has the calm of mountains, and his emotion is as wild and fierce and sharp as the lightning and just as reasonless as far as I can see or know. When you are away from him, try thinking of him and you’ll see what I mean. His figure will grow huge, until it tops the mountains, and his force will be like the irresistible plunging of the wind. Benjy is dead. You cannot think of Joseph dying. He is eternal. His father died, and it was not a death.” Her mouth moved helplessly, searching for words. She cried as though in pain, “I tell you this man is not a man, unless he is all men. The strength, the resistance, the long and stumbling thinking of all men, and all the joy and suffering, too, cancelling each other out and yet remaining in the contents. He is all these, a repository for a little piece of each man’s soul, and more than that, a symbol of the earth’s soul.”
Her eyes dropped and her hand withdrew. “I said a door was open.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Yes, I’ll be glad.” And she said suddenly, “There are some times, Joseph, when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow.”
He looked quickly at her in astonishment at her statement of his own thought. “How did you think that, dear?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because I was thinking it at that moment — and there are times when the people and the hills and the earth, all, everything except the stars, are one, and the love of them all is strong like a sadness.”
“Not the stars, then?”
“No, never the stars. The stars are always strangers — sometimes evil, but always strangers. Smell the sage, Elizabeth. It’s good to be getting home.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“وقع ما كنّا نعلم وقوعه ونجهل زمنه، والموت يصدمنا حتى مع علمنا بضرورة حلوله”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“I should have known,” he whispered. “I am the rain.” And yet he looked dully down the mountains of his body where the hills fell to an abyss. He felt the driving rain, and heard it whipping down, pattering on the ground. He saw his hills grow dark with moisture. Then a lancing pain shot through the heart of the world. “I am the land,” he said, “and I am the rain. The grass will grow out of me in a little while.”
And the storm thickened, and covered the world with darkness, and with the rush of waters.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“The wedding was in Monterey, a sombre boding ceremony in a little Protestant chapel. The church had so often seen two ripe bodies die by the process of marriage that it seemed to celebrate a mystic double death with its ritual.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“وما أن اقترب جوزيف حتى سمع أنيناً حاداً وزعيقاً منكراً اقشعر له بدنه، وزاد اقترابه، فرأى فحل خنزير بري عظيم الجسم، أحمر اربد، تساقط الشعر عن كتفيه، كانت أنيابه معقوفة حادة وهو يمزق جسد خنزير آخر صغير، يرتعش، وينزف، ويبعث ذلك الزعيق المنكر، وفي الجانب الآخر رأى جوزيف خنزيرة وخنانيص تدك الأرض بقوائمها وهي تولي أدبارها مذعورة، وقد هالها الرعب وتملّكها الذهول من منظر الوحش الكبير مقبلاً قبل أن يفتك بشقيقها...تناول جوزيف بندقيته من مقرها في السرج ثم دكها وصوّب على جبهة الخنزير، إلا أنه ضحك، وخفض البندقية من يده بعد أن ردّ ضاغط الأمان إلى موضعه وهو يقول:
إن بين يديّ قوة هائلة، كما أنها قاتلة. ولربما كان هذا الفحل أباً لخمسين خنوصاً كما أنه يستطيع أن يكون أباً لخمسين آخرين...فلماذا أقتله؟”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“...um homem tem de ter qualquer coisa a que se ligue, qualquer coisa que ele possa estar certo de encontrar lá de manhã.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Хората винаги вършат непозволени неща, когато са прекалено щастливи.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“1 When the crops were under cover on the Wayne farm near Pittsford in Vermont, when the winter wood was cut and the first light snow lay on the ground, Joseph Wayne went to the wing-back chair by the fireplace late one afternoon and stood before his father.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“مرگ حتی هنگامیکه میدانیم باید بیاید ما را به وحشت میاندازد.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Joseph saw how he could make a gesture with his arms and hands, that would sweep in and indicate and symbolize the ripe stars and the whole cup of the sky, the land, eddied with black trees, and the crested waves that were the mountains, an earth storm, frozen in the peak of its rushing, or stone breakers moving eastward with infinite slowness. Joseph wondered whether there were any words to say these things."
He said, "I like the night. It's more strong than the day.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“ما همه او را دوست داشتیم، اما میان محبت و تنفر فاصله اندکی وجود دارد.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“این زمین مملو از ارواح است، نه؛ ارواح سایههای ناتوان واقعیت هستند، آنچه اینجا زندگی میکند واقعیتر از ماست، ما بسان اشباحی از واقعیت آنیم.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“The mountains sat with their feet in the sea, and the old man's house was on the knees.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“توماس توله گرگی را گرفت و میکوشید تربیتش کند، اما در این کار کمتر موفق بود، او میگفت: بیشتر به یک آدم شباهت دارد تا حیوان، دلش نمیخواهد رام شود و چیزی بیاموزد.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“زندگی بهآسانی نابود نمیشود. انسان تا اشیائی که در آنها تغییر داده است نابود نشود، نمیتواند بمیرد. حتی تا زمانی که خاطرهی او در ذهن است او نیز همچنان زنده است. مردن انسان امری طولانی و تدریجی است.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Κατά κάποιον τρόπο τον ευχαριστούσε που η υγεία του ήταν κακή, επειδή αυτό ήταν μια απόδειξη πως ο Θεός τον σκεφτότανε αρκετά ώστε να τον κάνει να υποφέρει.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“Δεν ξέρω αν υπάρχουν άνθρωποι που γεννήθηκαν έξω από την ανθρωπότητα ή αν μερικοί είναι τόσο ανθρώπινοι, ώστε να κάνουν τους άλλους να φαίνονται μη πραγματικοί. Ίσως, ένας μικρός θεός να ζει στη γη πότε και πότε.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
“نخستین گور، نخستین خانهها و نخستین بچهها، اینها جزء وطن هستند. اینها چیزهایی هستند که انسان را استوار و پایدار میدارند.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown
John Steinbeck
Born place: in Salinas Valley, California, The United States
Born date February 27, 1902
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“There is something less than fully human in those who have never known a commitment to an idea, who have never risked an exploration of the unknown, who have never attempted the kind of creativity of which men and women are potentially capable.”
― Betty Friedan, quote from The Feminine Mystique
“Dragon intelligence was a mystery to men who made a study of the subject; he had no idea how much the dragon would hear or understand, but thought it better to avoid the risk of giving offense.”
― Naomi Novik, quote from His Majesty's Dragon
“Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know how you ever lived without them.”
― Elle Kennedy, quote from The Deal
“Which cat would give her a seventh life? She scanned the ranks and purred when she saw that Mosskit was padding forward, her tiny paws sending up sparks of starlight where they touched the ground. She had to rear up on her hind paws to touch Bluefur’s head. “With this life I give you trust. Believe in your Clan and in yourself. Never doubt that you know the right path to take.”
― Erin Hunter, quote from Bluestar's Prophecy
“Honour, eh? What the hell is that anyway? Every man thinks it's something different. You can't drink it. You can't fuck it. The more of it you have the less good it does you, and if you've got none at all you don't miss it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Before They Are Hanged
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A Vindication of the...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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