#w

Theirs is not to make reply: Theirs is not to reason why: Theirs is but to do and die. ↗

— Alfred Lord Tennyson

#make #reason #reply #theirs #why

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#believe #dedication #does #hold #i

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#always #any #been #coming #conviction

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#army #ball games #banners #despair #field

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#came #childish #day #deep #did

It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#disappeared #earth #ever #face #quarrelsome

So in our pride we ordered for breakfast an omelet, toast and coffee and what has just arrived is a tomato salad with onions, a dish of pickles, a big slice of watermelon and two bottles of cream soda. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#big #bottles #breakfast #coffee #cream

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#doing #even #hold #illusion #important

Time is the only critic without ambition. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#critic #only #time #without

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier? ↗

— John Steinbeck

#approaching #barrier #customs #feel #guilt