John Steinbeck Quotes

[A pariah is] something like a martyr with more suffering and less class.

What hurts is not being homosexual, but they tell it in your face as if you were a plague.

It's when you treat people like freaks that you become one yourself.

It's unfair how the kids who are starving for attention tended to be so annoying that people had no inclination to give it to them.

The prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the actual physical one.

I'm not afraid of death but I am afraid of dying. Pain can be alleviated by morphine but the pain of social ostracism cannot be taken away.

The man whom society will not forgive nor restore is driven into recklessness.

I often felt like I was walking around with this Scarlet Letter stitched to my chest from the way that people treated me.

Dangers by being despised grow great.

Though there are still many good people out there in the world, it seems that they're vastly outnumbered by the stupid, selfish, violent ones.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

If you understand why a monkey in a family is always mocked and harassed, you understand why monks are rejected by all--both old and young.

Don't talk like one of them. You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve. -The Joker

I always hope for roles that have some depth and that I can get my teeth into and that will challenge me, in some way.

It was a very interesting challenge [Heihei role] because he's limited to rooster-y, chicken-type noises, and he goes along on the whole adventure. It just becomes, "If that's how you express yourself, go for it.

Unsolicited surprise requests from strangers are essentially guaranteed to be met with a negative response.

Gays seem to be at the bottom of the pecking order: no matter how far down the pecking order another group is, its members still feel superior to and have no problem picking on gays.

As such, anything is always possible, even if your protagonist is a plumber. But it's the possibility, the limitless possibilities, of any fake life, that make writing about it so challenging.

Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not "fit in" with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.

Bad nature never lacks an instructor.

When you are a member of an out-group, and you challenge others with whom you share this outsider position to examine some aspect of their lives that distorts differences between you, then there can be a great deal of pain.

I live in Venice Beach so I see this all day, every day. Some people just ignore people with mental illness, pretend they're not there. They don't say "good morning" to them; they don't act like they're human. They'll get locked up, or just ignored. It's just awful.

Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it.

Without a vision human beings are nasty creatures.