Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Books reflect the complexity of human nature, showcasing both strengths and weaknesses.
In this quote, John Steinbeck compares a book to a person, suggesting that just like humans, books possess a duality of characteristics such as cleverness and dullness, bravery and cowardice, beauty and ugliness. He implies that within the pages of a book, there are moments of brilliance and inspiration, but also passages that might feel lacking or flawed, much like the experiences in life. The metaphor of a ‘wet and mangy mongrel’ symbolizes the imperfections in literature and life, while ‘wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun’ reflects the limitations and fragility of both human aspirations and the art of writing.
Themes
BooksLiteratureHuman NatureImperfectionCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussing the multifaceted aspects of literature.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes →At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
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And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. 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.
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It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
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Similar quotes
The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story.
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Is any novelist going to recognize the moment when he or she has nothing more to say? It is a brave thing to admit. And since as a professional writer you are full of anxiety anyway, you could easily misread the signs.
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Literary men are . . . a perpetual priesthood.
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