1. “A half-million people moving over the country; a million more restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.”
2. “If I could do this book properly it would be one of the really fine books and a truly American book. But I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability. i’ll just have to work from a background of these. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty it is all I can expect of my poor brain…. If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time.”
3. “But this tractor does two things—it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank.”
4. “Once, after a meeting, while she was still speaking in tongues, she fired both barrels of a shotgun at her husband, ripping one of his buttocks nearly off, and after that he admired her and did not try to torture her as children torture bugs.”
5. “It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.”
6. “Fella says today, ‘Depression is over. I seen a jackrabbit, an’ they wasn’t nobody after him.’ An’ another fella says, ‘That aint the reason. Can’t afford to kill jackrabbits no more. Catch ’em and milk ’em an’ turn ’em loose. One you seen prob’ly gone dry.”
7. “I’ve done my damndest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags, I don’t want him satisfied.”
8. “when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need.”
9. “Fella in business got to lie an’ cheat, but he calls it somepin else. That’s what’s important. You go steal that tire an’ you’re a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.”
10. “The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and he’s the servant of his property. That is so, too.”
11. “Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.”
12. “The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right—the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.”
13. “They’s times when how you feel got to be kep’ to yourself.”
14. “The clouds appeared and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore.”
15. “Death was a friend, and sleep was death’s brother.”
16. “They took the plates. They ate silently, wolfishly, and wiped up the grease with the bread.”
17. “Yes, you should talk,” he said. “Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin’ man can talk the murder right out of his mouth.”
18. “That was a time when a man had the right to be burried by his own son an’ a son had the right to burry his own father.”
19. “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.”
20. “Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor.”
21. “Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live – for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died…And this you can know – fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”
22. “You and me – why, we’re all that’s been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that’s us.”
23. “And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”
24. “Ever since I lost the spirit, I’d just as soon go one way or the other. I’ll go your way.”
25. “The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create . . . ”
26. “This you may say of man – when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.”
27. “You go steal that tire an’ you’re a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.”
28. “line between hunger and anger is a thin line.”
29. “It don’t take no nerve to do somepin when there ain’t nothin’ else you can do.”
30. “They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust. After”
31. “It gives a fella relief to tell, but it jus’ spreads out his sin.”
32. “All we got is the family unbroke.”
33. “You’re bound to get idears if you go thinkin’ about stuff.”
34. “But us, we got a job to do, and there’s a thousand ways, and we don’t know which one to take. And if I was to pray, it’d be for the folks that don’t know which way to turn.”
35. “No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.”
36. “Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor.”
37. “Maybe there ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue, they’s just what people does. Some things folks do is nice and some ain’t so nice, and that’s all any man’s got a right to say.”
38. “Prayer never brought in no side-meat.”
39. “There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.”
40. “An’ I got to thinkin’, on’y it wasn’t thinkin’, it was deeper down than thinkin’.”
41. “How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children?”
42. “The preacher rose high on his elbow. “Law changes,” he said, “but ‘got to’s’ go on. You got the right to do what you got to do.”
43. “I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.”
44. “I don’t know whether he was good or bad, but that don’t matter much. He was alive, an’ that’s what matters.”
45. “That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. ”
46. “An’ it all just amounts to what you tell yourself.”
47. “Death was a friend, and sleep was Death’s brother.”
48. “Can’t make a living on the land unless you’ve got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor. Crop land isn’t for little guys like us any more.”
49. “Before I knowed it, I was saying 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.”
50. “I nearly always write just as I nearly always breathe.”
51. “You’re not buying only junk, you’re buying junked lives. And more – you’ll see – you’re buying bitterness.”
52. “He drank too much when he could get it, ate too much when it was there, talked too much all the time.”
53. “You got to think about that day, an’ then the nex’ day. Jus’ take ever’ day.”
54. “Specially if I was drunk. That sort of senselessness kind a worries a man.”
55. “Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes it’ll on’y be one.”
56. “You’re jest a-teasin’ yourself up to cry. I don’ know what’s come at you. Our folks ain’t never did that. They took what come to ’em dry-eyed.”
57. “Ever’body’s askin’ that. ‘What we comin’ to?’ Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’. Always on the way.”
58. “It’s need that makes all the trouble.”
59. “If you’re in trouble or hurt or need – go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.”
60. “You’re buying years of work, toil in the sun; you’re buying a sorrow that can’t talk.”
61. “There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both.”
62. “Fear the time when the bombs stopped falling while the bombers live – for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live – for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken.”
63. “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 Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she has practiced denying them in herself.”
64. “You got a God. Don’t make no difference if you don’ know what he looks like.”
65. “No—the stars are close and dear and I have joined the brotherhood of the worlds.”
66. “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.”
67. “And her joy was nearly like sorrow.”
68. “The land is so much more than its analysis.”
69. “There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.”
70. “I seen turtles all my life. They’re always goin’ someplace. They always seem to want to get there.”
71. “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.”
72. “The stars came down wonderfully close and the sky was soft. Death was a friend, and sleep was death’s brother.”
73. “I’m scared of stuff so nice. I ain’t got faith. I’m scared somepin ain’t so nice about it.”
74. “And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves.”
75. “Time was when a man said what we’d do. Seems like women is tellin’ now. Seems like it’s purty near time to get out a stick.’’ Ma put the clean dripping tin dish out on a box. She smiled down at her work. “You get your stick, Pa,’’ she said. “Times when they’s food an’ a place to set, then maybe you can use your stick an’ keep your skin whole. But you ain’t a-doin’ your job, either a-thinkin’ or a-workin’. If you was, why, you could use your stick, an’ women folks’d sniffle their nose an’ creep-mouse aroun’. But you jus’ get you a stick now an’ you ain’t lickin’ no woman; you’re a-fightin’, ’cause I got a stick all laid out too.”
76. “There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success.”
77. “I’m glad there’s love here. That’s all.”
78. “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.”
79. “The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads.”
80. “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.”
81. “The bank – the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size.”
82. “The break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.”
83. “I ain’t sleepin’. I got too much to puzzle with.”
84. “You can’t go thinkin’ when you’re gonna be out. You’d go nuts. You got to think about that day, an’ then the nex’ day,”
85. “They gonna need help. They got to live before they can afford to die.”
86. “We got to get thinkin’ about doin’ stuff that means somepin.”
87. “They got to live before they can afford to die.”
88. “And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.”
89. “I just like to notice things. Makes the time pass.”
90. “The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was dark inside. He felt his way to the mattress on the floor, and he stretched out and cried in his bed, and the cars whizzing by on the highway only strengthened the walls of his loneliness.”
91. “The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.”
92. “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.”
93. “…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.”
94. “only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.”
95. “I’m jus’ pain covered with skin.”
96. “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lif’ up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.’ 1 That’s part of her.”
97. “Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create – this is man.”
98. “Funny thing. I wanta buy stuff. Stuff I don’t need.”
99. “It’s like me, I wouldn’ take the good ol’ gospel that was just layin’ there to my hand. I got to be pickin’ at it until I got it all tore down.”
100. “Our people are good people, our people are kind people. Pray God someday kind people won’t all be poor. Pray God someday a kid can eat. And the associations of owners know that some day the praying would stop. And there’s the end.”
101. “Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. …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.”
102. “The quality of owning freezes you forever in “I,” and cuts you off forever from the “we.”
103. “Woman can change better’n a man,” Ma said soothingly. “Woman got all her life in her arms. Man got it all in his head.”
104. “The people in flight from the terror behind-strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.”
105. “But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon.”
106. “And he saw the right evening star reflected in her eyes, and he saw the black cloud reflected in her eyes.”
107. “The great owners, striking at the immediate thing … not knowing these things are results, not causes.”
108. “For 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.”
109. “Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby those fruits may be eaten.”
110. “We still got a where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right.”
111. “Little kid comes in late ta school. Teacher says, “Why ya late?” Kid says, “Had a take a heifer down—get ‘er bred.” Teacher says, “Couldn’t your ol’ man do it?” Kid says, “Sure he could, but not as good as the bull.”
112. “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.”
113. “It ain’t kin we? It’s will we?”
114. “Fella can get so he misses the noise of a saw mill”
115. “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.”
116. “You’re bound to get idears if you go thinkin’ about stuff”
117. “You stay out here a little while, an’ if you smell any roses, you come let me smell, too.”
118. “Wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.”
119. “Puts a weight on ya. Goin’ out lookin’ for somepin you know you ain’t gonna find.”
120. “It’s a thing to see when a boy comes home.”
121. “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.”
122. “Wisht I knowed what all the sins was, so I could do ’em.”
123. “Thus they changed their social life—changed as in the whole universe only man can change. They were not farm men any more, but migrant men.”
124. “How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”
125. “A girl was just a girl to you. They wasn’t nothin’ to you. But to me they was holy vessels. I was savin’ their souls. An’ here with all that responsibility on me I’d just get ’em frothin’ with the Holy Sperit, an’ then I’d take ’em out in the grass.” “Maybe I should of been a preacher,’’ said Joad.”
126. “It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so. The”
127. “This nickel, unlike most money, has actually done a job of work, has been physically responsible for a reaction.”
128. “Anybody can break down. It takes a [real] man not to.”
129. “Well, for anybody else it was a mistake, but if you think it was a sin – then it’s a sin. A fella builds his own sins right up from the ground”
130. “Man, he lives in jerks-baby born an’ a man dies, an’ that’s a jerk-gets a farm and looses his farm, an’ that’s a jerk. Woman, its all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that. We ain’t gonna die out. People is goin’ on-changin’ a little, maybe, but goin’ right on.”
131. “A man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves.”
132. “And her eyes were on the highway, where life whizzed by.”
133. “When shoes and clothes and food, when hope is gone we’ll all have the rifle.”
134. “Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin’ man can talk the murder right out of his mouth an’ not do no murder.”
135. “He lived in a strange, silent house and looked out of it through calm eyes. He was a stranger to all the world, but he was not lonely.”
136. “A large 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.”
137. “Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. -Grapes of Wrath (less)”
138. “Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.”
139. “I’m learnin’ one thing good,’’ she said. “Learnin’ it all a time, ever’ day. If you’re in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help—the only ones.”
