Loading...
Loading...
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
20 essential quotations organised by theme. Each quote is 15 words or fewer, with speaker attribution and brief analysis for exam revision.
Short extracts are included under fair dealing (CDPA 1988) for study and criticism. Read the full novella alongside these notes.
“An’ live off the fatta the lan’.”
- Lennie (quoting George)
The ritual phrase of the Dream. Its repetition makes it a prayer, not a plan.
“Le’s get that place now.”
- Candy
The Dream becomes financially real — and, in Steinbeck’s logic, begins to die.
“Every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head.”
- Crooks
Crooks exposes the Dream as universal, recurrent and always disappointed.
“I coulda made somethin’ of myself. Maybe I will yet.”
- Curley’s wife
Her Hollywood dream is a gendered variant of the same failed ambition.
“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world.”
- George
The novella’s opening refrain names loneliness as the ranch workers’ defining condition.
“A guy needs somebody — to be near him.”
- Crooks
Crooks diagnoses loneliness as a pathology, not simply a mood.
“I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.”
- Curley’s wife
The only woman on the ranch voices an isolation the men refuse to acknowledge.
“Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?”
- Carlson (final line)
Carlson’s incomprehension seals the novella’s verdict: the world cannot recognise grief.
“I got you to look after me, ... you got me to look after you.”
- Lennie
Parallel structure creates the illusion of reciprocity in a one-sided relationship.
“We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.”
- George
Friendship is defined against the ranch’s default of isolation.
“I ain’t mad. I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now.”
- George (final scene)
George’s last words to Lennie are gentle, conversational and devastating.
“Tell me — like you done before.”
- Lennie
The dream is requested as a bedtime story; repetition intensifies the tragedy.
“You got no rights comin’ in a colored man’s room.”
- Crooks
Crooks asserts the only boundaries segregation allows him: his tiny space.
“I could get you strung up ... so easy it ain’t even funny.”
- Curley’s wife (to Crooks)
She weaponises racial violence to reclaim power from her own marginalisation.
“I ought to of shot that dog myself, George.”
- Candy
Foreshadows George’s decision; losing agency over death is presented as a failure.
“Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror.”
- Narrator
Animal imagery dehumanises Lennie while sustaining sympathy for his vulnerability.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”
- Robert Burns (epigraph)
The title’s source announces fatalism before the story begins.
“She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young.”
- Narrator (after Curley’s wife’s death)
Death restores the humanity the narrative withheld in life.
“A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head.”
- Narrator (the heron)
Nature’s predation in the closing pool scene mirrors the coming violence.
“I know now. I know now.”
- George
George’s flat repetition signals the death of hope and the dream simultaneously.
Short quotations reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the CDPA 1988 for criticism and review. Full text available from your school or local library.