The Winter of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) by John Steinbeck

Table of contents

1 Part One 1.1 Chapter II 1.2 Chapter III 1.3 Chapter V 1.4 Chapter VI 1.5 Chapter VIII 2 Part Two 2.1 Chapter XI 2.2 Chapter XIII 2.3 Chapter XIV

Part One

Chapter II

• "I'm sorry," Ethan said. "You have taught me something -- maybe three things, rabbit footling mine. Three things will never be believed -- the true, the probable, and the logical. I know now where to get the money to start my fortune."

Chapter III

• It is odd how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn't thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It's a safety place -- everyone must have one, although I never heard a man tell of it.

• They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.

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

• Does anyone ever know even the outer fringe of another? What are you like in there? Mary -- do you hear? Who are you in there?

Chapter V

• A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

Chapter VI

• To be alive at all is to have scars.

• No one wants advice -- only corroboration.

Chapter VIII

• There's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not.

Part Two

Chapter XI

• All men are moral. Only their neighbors are not.

Chapter XIII

• Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.

Chapter XIV

• Not only the brave get killed, but the brave have a better chance of it.

• Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is -- and a woman too, I guess.