John Steinbeck Quotes

There's always this thing of wanting to be elsewhere.

I always lived by railroads, and I would find places to just look at the horizon, and I always expected there was something somewhere else. And sometimes I think that's more a metaphysical somewhere else rather than just to get out of the town.

People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something - always, in a word, seeking.

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.

Where ever I am I always find myself looking out the window wishing I was somewhere else.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

I used to suffer from a lot of regret while touring. Regret at having to leave certain places, people and situations, or just a beautiful day.

America to me is so varied and exciting. I always feel nostalgia for the place I'm not in, and then I get there and find myself in a traffic jam going into the Lincoln Tunnel, and I think, 'God, why was I romanticizing this part of the country?' I think it has to do with the romantic, unrealistic temperament.

I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time.

You don't see me in Los Angeles a lot. I go back home. Because I can't play the game. I can't - my tolerance - I know I'm getting old; I'll be 50 this year. And you know how I know I'm getting old? 'Cause my tolerance level is low.

I've always had this deep and chronic sense of dissatisfaction.

Many women long for what eludes them, and like not what is offered them.

I know what it's like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it's like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis.

As I get older I tend to rail against the world more and more.

I guess I'm just a frustrated cowboy.

The more I get used to my life, the more restless I become.

So much of my intention with songs is to voice a continual dissatisfaction, or at least to claw my way out of it.

I hate not playing. That's the bottom line.

I've tired of looking into the future, imagining all the things I want to have.

If you desire, you are restless.

A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, Václav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.

It sounds so far away and different. I like different places. I like any places that isn't here.

In all climates, under all skies, man's happiness is always somewhere else.

For me, a place unvisited is like an unrequited love. A dull ache that- try as you might to think it away, to convince yourself that she really wasn't the right country for you- just won't leave you in peace.