Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
~ John Steinbeck

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We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
~ John Steinbeck

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Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
~ John Steinbeck

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It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
~ John Steinbeck

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Writers are a sorry lot. The best you can say of them is that they are better than actors and that’s not much.
~ John Steinbeck

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An artist should be open on all sides to every kind of light and darkness.
~ John Steinbeck

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