GEORGE QUOTES OF MICE AND MEN

“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you.”

“He’s my friend, ain’t no harm in talkin’ to him.”

“I ain’t got no people. I seen the guys that go around on ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean.”

“I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land.”

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they’re poundin’ their tail on some other ranch. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to.”

“An’ why? Because… because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.”

“I got you! And you got me. That’s why.”

“Guys like us got no family. They make a little stake an’ then they blow it in. They don’t have no fun. After a long time, they get mean.”

“We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.”

“We got somebody to talk to that actually gives a damn about us.”

“I shouldn’t of let no stranger shoot my dog.”

“We could live offa the fat of the land.”

“You remember when we was in Murray and I told you to jump in the river?”

“I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now. That’s a thing I want you to know.” FEELING LEFT BEHIND QUOTES

“Tell you what made me stop that. One day a bunch of guys was standin’ around up on the Sacramento River. I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, ‘Jump in.’ An’ he jumps. Couldn’t swim a stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get him. An’ he was so damn nice to me for pullin’ him out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in. Well, I ain’t done nothing like that no more.”

“They all want my job.”

“I got to thinkin’ how we was gonna do it. I just got to thinkin’ it wasn’t enough to have a job. We’d need a stake. I knowed we couldn’t do her ‘n’ live like her.”

“God, you’re a lot of trouble,” said George. “I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail.”

“I wasn’t kicked off the ranch,” he said. “I left it on my own accord. If you don’t want me, you only just got to say so, and I’ll go off in those hills right there—right up in those hills and live by myself. An’ I won’t get no mice stole from me.”

“Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ ’bout it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”

“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 an’ get whatever I want. Why, I could stay in a cat house all night. I could eat any place I want, hotel or any place, and order any damn thing I could think of. An’ I could do all that every damn month. Get a gallon of whisky, or set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool.”

“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.”

“We’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say the hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof.”

“We’re gonna have a little place,” said George. “We’ll live on the fatta the lan’.”

“I worked alongside him for more’n ten years. I seen him go through flustration. I seen him come out the other side. A guy can talk to you, an’ some can talk too much, but he wasn’t no more danger than a pea shooter.”

“I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.”

“Someday—we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs and—”