Humanities › Literature Quotes From John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' Share Flipboard Email Print Bettmann / Getty Images Literature Quotations Love Quotes Great Lines from Movies and Television Quotations For Holidays Best Sellers Classic Literature Plays & Drama Poetry Shakespeare Short Stories Children's Books By Esther Lombardi Esther Lombardi Literature Expert M.A., English Literature, California State University - Sacramento B.A., English, California State University - Sacramento Esther Lombardi, M.A., is a journalist who has covered books and literature for over twenty years. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on January 21, 2020 Of Mice and Men is a novel by John Steinbeck. This tragedy was first published in 1937. The story is told from the third-person omniscient point-of-view. Of Mice and Men follows the misadventures of Lennie and George, two ranch hands in California. Here are a few quotes from Of Mice and Men. Quotes John Steinbeck: A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. John Steinbeck: Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks, the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones. (George) John Steinbeck: Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place... With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us. (George) John Steinbeck: Whatever we ain't got, that's what you want. God a'mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want. Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Lombardi, Esther. "Quotes From John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/of-mice-and-men-quotes-740938. Lombardi, Esther. (2020, August 28). Quotes From John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/of-mice-and-men-quotes-740938 Lombardi, Esther. "Quotes From John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/of-mice-and-men-quotes-740938 (accessed March 20, 2023). copy citation Featured Video