John Steinbeck Quotes

The conscious imprinting that happens between, say, 10 and 16 is huge. I think it's so important for me as a writer to stay open to the memories of that period because they were so formative.

The highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one.

You think when Jesus comes back, he really wants to see a cross? That's like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on.

But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again.

In a baby's first months, the earliest patterns of intimacy or distrust are forever grooved into his soul.

What instruction the baby brings to the mother!

Charlie had Sophie strapped to his chest like a terrorist baby bomb when he came down the back steps. She had just gotten to the point where she could hold up her head, so he had strapped her in face-out so she could look around. The way her arms and legs waved around as Charlie walked, she looked as if she was skydiving and using a skinny nerd as a parachute.

"I can't believe you recently had a baby. How do you do it?" The baby starts to come down...and once that happens you can't-it comes out. Whether you let it or not, the baby comes out. So that's how I did it.

I think the benefit of a Catholic childhood is your belief in visual symbols as transmitters of information and clues about life, whether it's the mystery of life or life in general.

Bringing a baby into the world is something I've always wanted, and now I'm completely ready for my life to start revolving around another human being.

Having a baby is definitely a labor of love.

For mankind, speech with a capital S is especially meaningful and committing, more than the content communicated. The outcry of the newborn and the sound of the bells are fraught with mystery more than the baby's woeful face or the venerable tower.

The function of (heroic) symbols is to give you a sense of Aha! Yes, I know what it is, it's myself.

the first night is the worst possible time to make a hard and fast criticism: the baby never looks its best on the day it is born.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.

You been hearing about how bad I am since you were a little kid with mess in your pants! Tonight, I'm gonna whip you till you cry like a baby.

I've learned that it's way harder to be a baby. Everything is a struggle for her. For instance, I haven't thrown up since the '90s and she's thrown up twice since we started this interview. Motherhood is cake compared to what it's like to be a baby.

How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

In the Christianity of Christendom the Cross has become something like the child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.

Context shapes who you are.

The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration.

I have a great deal of religious symbolism in my stories because I have a very deep sense of religion and also I have a religious training. And I suppose you don't say, 'I'm going to have the flowering judas tree stand for betrayal,' but of course it does.

My second Christian name is John. Good solid bourgeois Christian name, like my first name, Peter, a rock. Minerals. Build on rock, rocks, uranium. Peter and John were two of the twelve apostles - arguable the two most significant. Were my parents hedging their bets?

Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-because they find them romantic.

The idea of legitimacy is something I suppose I deal with in my fiction, and in part it's probably a response to my upbringing. When I was growing up I was the middle child, pathologically shy, in a family with a very loud and opinionated older brother, and I felt as if I never had the right to speak. As a result, I simply didn't speak very much.