John Steinbeck Quotes

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.

There has been the biggest black cloud following me around. People believe it's all my fault that Steve is not here. He has always had an open door, and he doesn't choose to do this any more.

I feel guilty about spending so much time away from home and loved ones.

When my grandfather died, I was on tour, and I didn't go to the funeral. I never got to say goodbye, and this is one of the problems of being in a rock band is that you're away, and your loved ones die, and you can't even see them.

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliation of every fault. We recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

Society isn't good at dealing with people who have something concrete to feel guilty about or who are dealing with a loss.

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I'm so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don't have the guts to take their names out of the book.

When my young men began the killing, my heart was hurt.

My second wife, the mother of one of my sons, died of murder. I was not with her, but I could have saved her. I think.

When the show's not around any more, it's going to be hard not to have her in my life.

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.

Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.

If I didn't like someone, I wouldn't want him calling me up when I was dying. I wouldn't want them having regrets that they didn't talk to me.

Nobody feels any worse than I do about losing.

Odd how much it hurts when a friend moves away- and leaves behind only silence.

I think whenever you lose somebody close to you, there's always a part of you that wishes you could have done something differently.

No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.

I was sick. I guess I was about to crack up thinking about all my good buddies. They were better men than me and they're not coming back. Much less back to the White House, like me.

I am sorry I could not see my father.

I don't know how it would play out it the long run, if I were go to series with the story, I don't know. I just miss Peter so much on a personal level, that's about what I can say. He's my buddy and I wish he were around.

No one leaves an old friend unless they are ashamed.

Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.

My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parents and my father's doctor had all decided it was wiser for me to go to South America than to stay home and see Papa waste away. For a long time, I felt an enormous sense of guilt about having left my father's side when he was so sick.

I had a bad conscience until I discovered that having a bad conscience about something so gravely serious as leaving your children is an affectation, a way of achieving a little suffering that can't for a moment be equal to the suffering you've caused.