Grapes of Wrath Quotes

Quote 1: "The women studied the men's faces secretly, for the corn could go as long as something else remained." Chapter 1, pg. 4

Quote 2: "The men sat still - thinking - figuring." Chapter 1, pg. 5

Quote 3: "His upper lip was long, and since his teeth protruded, the lip stretched to cover them, for this man kept his lips closed." Chapter 2, pg. 7

Quote 4: " They fix'em so you can't win nothing," Chapter 2, pg. 8

Quote 5: "Sure - I seen it. But sometimes a guy'll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker." Chapter 2, pg. 9

Quote 6: "You been a good guy. But look, when you been in stir a little while, you can smell a question comin' from hell to breakfast. You telegraphed you're the first time you opened your trap." Chapter 2, pg. 16

Quote 7: "sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed." Chapter 3, pg. 17

Quote 8: " there ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There is just stuff people do." Chapter 4, pg. 28

Quote 9: "When Uncle John wanted pork he ate pork. He had her." Chapter 4, pg. 37

Quote 10: "The tenants, from their sunbeaten dooryards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the dooryards and sat in their cars to talk out of the windows." Chapter 5, pg. 38

Quote 11: Banks "breathe profits; they eat interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat." Chapter 5, pg. 39

Quote 12: "What are you doing this kind of work for - against your own people?" Chapter 5, pg. 45

Quote 13: "Muley's got a-holt of somepin, an' it's too big for him, an' it's too big for me." Chapter 6 , pg. 61

Quote 14: "You don't look for no sense when lightnin' kills a cow, or it comes up a flood. That's jus' the way things is. But when a bunch of men take an' lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning." Chapter 6 pg. 68

Quote 15: "It won't do no good. Jus' a waste. We got to get thinkin' about doin' stuff that means somepin." Chapter 6, pg, 74

Quote 16: "Salesmen, neat, deadly, small intent eyes watching for weakness." Chapter 7, pg. 77

Quote 17: "Guarantee? We guaranteed it to be an automobile. We didn't guarantee to wet-nurse it." Chapter 7, pg. 82

Quote 18: "Soften 'em up Joe. Jesus, I wisht I had a thousand jalopies." Chapter 8, pg. 83

Quote 19: "He'd come to our house in the night sometimes, an' we knowed he come 'cause jus' as sure as he come there'd be a pack of gum in the bed right beside ever' one of us. We thought he was Jesus Christ Awmighty." Chapter 8, pg. 87

Quote 20: "Pur-raise Gawd fur vittory!" Chapter 8, pg. 97

Quote 21: "Gonna get me a whole big bunch of grapes off a bush, or whatever, an' I'm gonna squash 'em on my face an' let 'em run offen my chin." Chapter 8 pg. 105

Quote 22: "You're not buying only junk, you're buying junked lives. And more - you'll see - you're buying bitterness. Buying a plow to plow your own children under, buying the arms and spirits that might have saved you." Chapter 9, pg. 110

Quote 23: "...someday - the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it." Chapter 9, pg. 111

Quote 24: " How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it." Chapter 9, pg. 112

Quote 25: "They met at the most important place, near the truck...this was the new hearth, the living center of the family." Chapter 10, pg. 127

Quote 26: "It ain't kin we? It's will we... As far as 'kin.' We can't do nothin', not go to California or nothin'; but as far as "will,' why, we'll do what we will." Chapter 10, pg. 130

Quote 27: "This here is my country. I b'long here. An' I don't give a goddamn if they's oranges an' grapes crowdin' a fella outa bed even. I ain't a-goin." Chapter 10, pg. 142

Quote 28: "So easy, that the wonder goes out of the work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of the land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation." Chapter 11, pg. 147

Quote 29: "That man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving the dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry." Chapter 11, pg. 148

Quote 30: "The houses were vacant, and a vacant house falls quickly apart." Chapter 11, pg. 149

Quote 31: "66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from floods that bring no richness to the lnad and steal what little richness is there." Chapter 12, pg. 150

Quote 32: "Fella in business got to lie an' cheat, but he calls it somepin else...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." Chapter 12, pg. 154

Quote 33: "refire the faith forever." Chapter 12, pg. 155

Quote 34: "Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one." Chapter 13, pg. 157

Quote 35: "Ever'body is askin' that. What we comin' to? Seems to me we don't never come to nothin'. Always on the way. " Chapter 13, pg. 162

Quote 36: "All that lives is holy." Chapter 13, pg. 184

Quote 37: "Grampa didn't die tonight. He died the minute you took 'm off the place." Chapter 13, pg. 186

Quote 38: "Fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe." Chapter 14, pg. 192

Quote 39: "This is the zygote. For here 'I lost my land' is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate - 'We lost our land.'" Chapter 14, pg. 193

Quote 40: "the quality of owning freezes you forever into 'I,' and cuts you off forever from the 'we.'" Chapter 14, pg. 193

Quote 41: "All we got is the family unbroke." Chapter 16, pg. 217

Quote 42: "Now look-a-here, fella. You got that eye wide open. An' ya dirty, ya stink. Ya jus' askin' for it. Ya like it. Lets ya feel sorry for yaself. 'Course ya can't get no woman with that empty eye flappin' aroun'. Put somepin over it an' wash ya face." Chapter 16, pg. 229

Quote 43: "On'y I wisht they was some way to make her 'thout takin' her away from somebody else." Chapter 16, pg. 239

Quote 44: "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." Chapter 17, pg. 250

Quote 45: "They hate you 'cause they're scairt. They know a hungry fella gonna get food even if he got to take it. They know that fallow lan' s a sin an' somebody' gonna take it." Chapter 18, pg. 262

Quote 46: "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." Chapter 18, pg. 264

Quote 47: "They's a time of change, an' when that comes, dyin' is a piece of all dyin', and bearin' is a piece of all bearin', an' bearin' an' dyin' is two pieces of the same thing. An' then things ain't so lonely anymore. An' then a hurt don't hurt so bad." Chapter 18, pg. 268

Quote 48: "family's fallin' apart." Chapter 18, pg. 276

Quote 49: "The cop was right. A crop raised - why, that makes ownership. Land howed and carrots eaten - a man might fight for land he's taken food from." Chapter 19, pg. 302

Quote 50: "So you're lookin' for work. What ya think ever'body else is lookin' for? Di'monds? What you think I wore my ass down to a nub lookin' for? Chapter 20, pg. 312

Quote 51: "Well, s'pose them people got together an' says , 'Let 'em rot.' Wouldn' be long 'fore the price went up, by God!" Chapter 20, pg. 315

Quote 52: " If it was the law they was workin' with, why we could take it. But it ain't the law. They're a-workin' away at out spirits...they're workin' away at our decency." Chapter 20, pg. 357

Quote 53: " Why, Tom - us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people - we go on." Chapter 20, pg. 359

Quote 54: "Men who had never waver wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants." Chapter 21, pg. 362

Quote 55: "And now the great owners and the companies invented a new method. A great owner bought a cannery. And when the peaches and the pears were ripe he cut the price of fruit below the price of raising it. And as cannery owner he paid himself a low price for the fruit and kept the price of canned goods up and took his profit." Chapter 21, pg. 363

Quote 56: "On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment." Chapter 21, pg. 363

Quote 57: "The Association don't like government camps. Can't get a deputy in there. The people make their own laws, I hear, and you can't arrest a man without a warrant. Now if there was a big fight and maybe shooting - a bunch of deputies could go in and clean out the camp." Chapter 22, pg. 378

Quote 58: "We're Joads. We don't look up to nobody...We was farm people till the debt. And then - them people. They done sompin' to us. Ever' time they come seemed like they was a-whippin' me - all of us...Made me feel ashamed. An' now I ain't ashamed. These folks is our folks." Chapter 22, pg. 393

Quote 59: "clutch-an'-hug dancin'" Chapter 22, pg. 394

Quote 60: "I can see your black soul a-burnin'. I see that innocent child in that there girl's belly a-burnin'." Chapter 22, pg. 409

Quote 61: "The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement." Chapter 23, pg. 415

Quote 62: "brotherhood of worlds," Chapter 23, pg, 418

Quote 63: "Wisht I knowed what all the sins was, so I could do 'em. The migrants looked humbly for pleasure on the roads." Chapter 23, pg. 421

Quote 64: "We're tryin' to get along, havin' fun an' keepin' order. Don't tear all that down. Jes' think about it. You're jes' harmin' yourself." Chapter 24. pg. 439

Quote 65: " I been thinkin' maybe we ought to git up a turkey shootin' club an' have meetin's ever' Sunday." Chapter 24, pg. 440

Quote 66: "All of California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy." Chapter 25, pg. 441

Quote 67: "The year is heavy with produce. And men are proud, for of their knowledge they can make the year heavy. They have transformed the world with their knowledge." Chapter 25, pg. 442

Quote 68: "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." Chapter 25, pg. 445

Quote 69: " They ain't rainsin' hell with no two hundred men. They're pickin' on one man." Chapter 26, pg. 456

Quote 70: "I'm learin' one thing good...If you're in trouble or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones." Chapter 26, pg. 479

Quote 71: "You fellas don' know what you're doin'." Chapter 26, pg. 491

Quote 72: "Goin' away ain't gona ease us. It's gonna bear us down...They was the time when we was on the lan'. They was a boundary to us then. Ol' folks dies off, an' little fellas come, an' we was one thing - we was the fambly - kinda whole and clear. An' we ain't clear no more." Chapter 26, pg. 500

Quote 73: "Well, this fella don' want no hangin', 'cause he'd do it again. An' same time, he don't aim to bring trouble down on his folks. Ma - I got to go." Chapter 26, pg. 509

Quote 74: "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." Chapter 28, pg. 533

Quote 75: "A fella ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big one...then I'll be around in the dark. I'll be ever'where - wherever you look." Chapter 28, pg. 534

Quote 76: "Little fella like me can't do anything. The Association sets the rate, and we got to mind. If we don't - we ain't go to farm. The little fella gets crowded all the time." Chapter 28, pg. 536

Quote 77: "I ain't no good no more. Spen' all my time thinkin' of home, an' I ain't never gonna see it no more." Chapter 28, pg. 538

Quote 78: "Fella had a team of horses, had to use 'em to plow an' cultivate an' mow, wouldn' think a turnin' 'em out to starve when they wasn't workin'. Them's horses - we're men." Chapter 29, pg. 553

Quote 79: "No. They was on'y one thing to do - ever - an' we done it." Chapter 30, pg. 564

Quote 80: "Use' ta be the fambly was fust. It ain't so now. It's anybody. Worse off we get, the more we got to do." Chapter 30, pg. 566

Quote 81: "Go down the stream an' tell 'em. Go down the stream an' rot an' tell 'em that way. That's the way you can talk." Chapter 30, pg. 569

Quote 82: "She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously." Chapter 30, pg. 578