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The Grapes of Wrath QUOTES

The Grapes of Wrath QUOTES

81 " How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

82 " I'll tell ya one thing -- the jail house is jus' a kind a way a drivin' a guy slowly nuts. See? An' they go nuts, an' you see 'em an' hear 'em, an' pretty soon you don' know if you're nuts or not. When they get to screamin' in the night sometimes you think it's you doin' the screamin'--an' sometimes it is. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

83 " I know this - a man got to do what he got to do, I can't tell you. I don't think they's luck or bad luck. On'y one thing in the worl' I'm sure of, an' that's I'm sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella's life. He got to do it all hisself, Help im, maybe, but not tell him what to do. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

84 " The thing that give me the mos' trouble was, it didn't make no sense. You don't look for no sense when lightnin' kill a cow, or it comes up a lood. That's jus' the way things is. But when a bunch of men take an' lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning. Men is supposed to think things out. Here they put me in an' keep me an' feed me four years. That ought to either make me so I won't do her again or else punish me so I'll be afraid to do her again "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

85 " There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

86 " How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past? "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

87 " You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

88 " ...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

89 " Before I knowed it, I was sayin' out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing.' . . . . I says, 'What's this call, this sperit?' An' I says, 'It's love. I love people so much I'm fit to bust, sometimes.' . . . . I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit-the human sperit-the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent-I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

90 " Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

91 " If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do 'll make him feel rich. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

92 " Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't all be poor. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

93 " I'm jus' pain covered with skin. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

94 " And this you can know- fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

95 " This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we". "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

96 " I’m gettin’ tired way past where sleep rests me. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

97 " Then it don' matter. Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where - wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

98 " And her joy was nearly like sorrow. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

99 " Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

100 " If you're in trouble or hurt or need–go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help–the only ones. "

― John Steinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath