John Steinbeck Quotes

If I am an angel, paint me with black wings.

They talk like angels but they live like men.

Beauty and the devil are the same thing.

Appearances frequently deceive us, and what at first sight carries with it the face of good proves to be a real evil, whilst an apparent evil oftentimes conceals an extraordinary good

I like writing about the evil lurking in apparently good people.

If an evil spirit had to hide from God, it would hide in a diamond. If an angel had to hide from the Devil, it would hide in rose quartz.

Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.

I was like a chocolate in a box, looking well behaved and perfect in place, all the while harboring a secret center.

We Christian writers must paint evil with the blackest of brushes, not to sow fear, but to call out the monsters to be scattered by our light. If Satan cloaks himself as an angel of white, intent on deceiving the world, any attempt on our parts to minimize evil is only complicit with his strategy... Turn to the light; don’t fear the shadows it creates.

Behind every glorious facade there is always hidden something ugly.

God will bless you,' said he, 'you are an angel since you take care of the flowers.' 'No,' she replied. 'I am the devil, but that's all the same to me.

Hell is both sides of the tomb, and a devil may be respectable and wear good clothes.

Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fences, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our own hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

Everyone has something to hide. And if they couldn't hide it the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is.

Evil doesn't always have one face, Ethan.

God hides the fires of hell within paradise.

There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.

The rose is born evil ... but it is pink.

Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.

Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors, for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint thy follies and vices as thou shalt never, by their will, discover good from evil, or vice from virtue.

Though I know that he had something to do with the attack simulation, and with all those deaths, I find it difficult to pair those actions with the man I see in front of me. I wonder if this is how it is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likeable as good men.

There was a serenity about him always that had the look of innocence, when, technically, the word was no longer applicable.

Demon, angel, all the same thing if you go back far enough, or cut deep enough.

The detective and his criminal wear versions of the same mask.