I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
~ John Steinbeck

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We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.
~ John Steinbeck

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The one thing our species is helpless against is good fortune. It first puzzles, then frightens, then angers, and finally destroys us.
~ John Steinbeck

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Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power.
~ John Steinbeck

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A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
~ John Steinbeck

To be alive at all is to have scars.
~ John Steinbeck

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No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.
~ John Steinbeck

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A secret’s a terribly lonesome thing.
~ John Steinbeck

No one wants advice — only corroboration.
~ John Steinbeck

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You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.
~ John Steinbeck

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