John Steinbeck Quotes

The clouds appeared and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1. Here we have a description of the gray, cloudless skies over Oklahoma. The "Oakie" sharecroppers wonder when, if ever, the rains will come to provide life-giving water for their parched crops. The novel goes on to detail the powerful story of desperation and hopes, failures and hopelessness of those at the bottom of the socio-economic food chain, who face a system that dehumanizes and strips them of human dignity.

"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. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t nice, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. The former evangelical minister Jim Casy rebels against classical religion. He dismisses the traditional black-and-white idea of virtue and sin as taught by Christian churches. How humans should or shouldn’t act is a gray area, where people don’t have a right to judge what is right and wrong, he feels. Conventional Christianity is not fit for purpose, as he sees it. It is not capable of helping people in their misery at a time of national crisis such as the Dust Bowl catastrophe.

A large red drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 6. Steinbeck’s description of sunset, on the surface, may seem to paint a picture of beauty and tranquillity. But the author deftly employs color imagery to tell us otherwise. The red sun that "drips" over the horizon does not appear friendly. References to blood and the "bloody rag" remind us that the homes of the Joads and other farmers have being torn from them. The darkness that creeps over the land foreshadows the hard road that lies ahead for these dispossessed.

She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Steinbeck uses a metaphor to describe Ma Joad as the "citadel" of her family. Indeed she is a formidable fortress against the hurts and fears of life that the Joads experience. A remarkable woman, she denies such hurts and fears in herself so that her husband and children don’t feel them. Ma is the foundation upon which the family is built and relies. The description is not atypical of a woman in the novel, when you remember that in the early chapters women were shown as looking to their men for the answers and solutions. As the backbone of her family, Ma is in stark contrast to this. She will prove to be the Joads’ matriarchal leader and Steinbeck’s great heroine of the Depression era.

And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 8. Using a simile, Steinbeck compares Ma Joad to a goddess. Without doubt Steinbeck’s creation is one of the strongest female characters in literature, and at a time when women were generally not thought of as strong. She is portrayed as the Joads’ healer, their source of strength and calm and happiness, the glue that holds her family together. She is the to-go person, regardless of how good or bad the situation is.

In the little houses the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers. Picked over their possessions for the journey to the West. The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. In preparation for the migration west, the tenant farmers sift through their belongings to decide what to disgard or bring with them on the journey. They know that the past is dead and they must move on. But the women on the other hand know the past will come back to haunt them. Steinbeck personifies the past by giving it the human ability to cry.

"Tom, I hope things is all right in California…Seems too nice, kinda. I seen the han’bills fellas pass out, an’ how much work they is, an’ high wages an’ all; an’ I seen in the paper how they want folks to come an’ pick grapes an’ oranges an’ peaches. That’d be nice work, Tom, pickin’ peaches. Even if they wouldn’t let you eat none, you could maybe snitch a little ratty one sometimes. An’ it’d be nice under the trees, workin’ in the shade."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. If something seem too good to be true, then maybe it is. Ma Joad is fantasizing about the good life in California. But at the same time she has reservations that the reality will match the dream as promised in the fruit farm owners’ flyers. This is foreshadowing of things to come for the Joads.

"I’m scared of stuff so nice. I ain’t got faith. I’m scared somepin ain’t so nice about it."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. The practical Ma Joad is skeptical of the promise of an abundant and better life in California. She hopes that it will live up to its promise. But she admits to being scared that the promised land there is only a dream. Ma proves to be a very perceptive woman, as she foreshadows that California will not be quite the utopia the migrants had hoped for.

That man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 11. Steinbeck believes that the introduction of tractors and machines to the farms in Oklahoma has dehumanized farming. He refers to the "machine man" who drives a "dead tractor" and has no love for or connection to the land he works. He praises the farmers that they have replaced, men close to the land, who walk and kneel on the earth, and guide the plow with their hands.

Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create – this is man.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14. Here Steinbeck sums up beautifully the needs and functions of every man and migrant – work for his muscles, and creative labor for his mind. The extended passage from which this line is taken is almost Biblical in its tone: "The last clear definite function of man – muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need – this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving."

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

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14. Steinbeck speaks of the need for humans to do something above and beyond a job of work. Their desire to build and create things is the spark that makes humans really come alive. Steinbeck is alluding to how Dust Bowl migrants are excluded, not only from jobs, but from being productive and creative members of society.

"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, Chapter 18. Jim Casy makes this comment when told about a man who owns a million acres and drives around in a bullet-proof car looking scared and unhappy. Casy believes that this says much about the man losing his moral center to the doctrine of materialism. He is suggesting that the man has been corrupted by his need for all this land and wealth.

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can’t scare him – he has known a fear beyond every other.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. There is growing fear of migrant workers among the landowners in the West. Their position is at risk from deperate people who cannot afford to buy food for themselves and their families. The owners realize that a man whose children are hungry cannot be frightened. The growing gap between the rich and poor, haves and have-nots, landowning and dispossessed classes, is highlighted here.

Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor. Pray God some day a kid can eat.
And the association of owners knew that some day the praying would stop.
And there’s the end.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Steinbeck believes that when disspossessed migrant families stop praying to God for sufficient food for their children, they will rise up against the landowners. He thinks that revolution is inevitable. He also criticizes the lack of kindness among the rich class, as a migrant expresses hope that one day "kind people won’t all be poor." The author also seems to take a swipe at organized religion, when he suggests that justice for the dispossessed will only happen after the praying stops.
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