Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote compares a town to a living organism, emphasizing its unique identity and how information spreads within it.
John Steinbeck uses the metaphor of a town as a living entity to illustrate how towns operate as complex systems with their own characters and emotions. He highlights the mysterious nature of communication within a community, suggesting that news and information flow swiftly through the town, reflecting the connections and dynamics that bind its inhabitants together. This perspective prompts reflections on the essence of community life and the unseen forces that shape social interactions.
Themes
TownCommunityCommunicationIdentitySocialDynamics
In practice
Example use cases
During a community meeting, one might reference this quote to discuss the importance of town dynamics.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes βAt 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.
John SteinbeckRead
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.
John SteinbeckRead
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John SteinbeckRead
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
John SteinbeckRead
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
John SteinbeckRead
Similar quotes
Sinners in their natural state lie dead, lifeless, and moveless; they can no more believe in Christ, nor repent, than a dead man can speak or walk: but, in virtue of the promise, the Spirit of life from Christ Jesus, at the time appointed, enters into the dead soul, and quickens it; so that it is no more morally dead, but alive, having new spiritual powers put into it, that were lost by Adam's fall.
Thomas BostonRead
The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide.
Winston ChurchillRead
It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat sh** and die.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.
Albert CamusRead
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
Henry FordRead
Whatever is not done by the permission of Allah will not happen, and what is not done for the sake of Allah will not benefit or remain.
Ibn TaymiyyahRead