“‘He’s a nice fella,’ said Slim. ‘Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.’” - Chapter 3 “Why he’d do any darn thing I tol’ him. If I tol’ him to walk over a cliff, over he’d go. That wasn’t so much fun after a while. He never got mad about it, neither. I’ve beat the heck outa him, and he could bust every bone in my body jus’ with his hands, but he never lifted a finger against me. - Chapter 3 “Carlson was not to be put off. ‘Look, Candy. This ol’ dog jus’ suffers hisself all the time. If you was to take him out and shoot him right in the back of the head-’ he leaned over and pointed right, ‘right there, why he’d never know what hit him.’” - Chapter 3 “Candy cried, ‘ sure they all want it. Everybody wants a little bit of land, not much. Jus’ som’ thin’that was his. Som’thin’ he could live on and there couldn’t nobody throw him off it. I never had none…But we gonna do it now, and don’t make no mistake about that.’” - Chapter 4 “ Whatta I care? You bindle bums think you’re so darn good. Whatta ya think I am, a kid? I tell ya I could of went with shows. Not jus’ one, neither. An’a guy tol’ me he could put me in pitchers…Ever’body out doin’ som’pin’. Every’body! An’ what am I don’? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs…an’ likin’ it because there ain’t nobody else.” - Chapter 4 “I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.” - Chapter 3 “I seen it over an’ over – a guy talkin’ to another guy and it don’t make no difference if he don’t hear or understand. The thing is they’re talkin’, or they’re setting still not talkin’. It don’t make no difference, no difference.” - Chapter 4 “Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quite an’go on; an’ every darn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Everybody wants a little piece of land.” - Chapter 4

“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’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.” - Chapter 4 “An’ it’d be our on, an’ nobody could can us. If we don’t like a guy we can say, ‘Get the heck out,’ and by gosh he’s got to do it. An’ if a fren’ come along, why we’d have an extra bunk, an’ we’d say ‘Why don’t you spen’ the night?’ an’ by gosh he would.” - Chapter 3 “George said wonderingly, ‘ S’pose they was a carnival or a circus come to town, or a ball game, or any darn thing.’ Old Candy nodded in appreciation of the idea. ‘We’d just go to her,’ George said. ‘We wouldn’t ask nobody if we could. Jus’ say ‘We’ll go to her,’ an’ we would.” -Chapter 3 “The skimmer had been studying the old dog with his calm eyes …‘Carl’s right, Candy. That dog ain’t no good to himself. I wisht somebody’d shoot me if I get old an’ a cripple.’” -Chapter 3 “At last Carlson said, ‘If you want me to, I’ll put the old devil out of his misery right now and get it over with. Ain’t nothing left for him. Can’t eat, can’t see, can’t even walk without hurtin’.’” -Chapter 3 “Sure, we’d have a little house an’ a room to ourself. Little fat iron stove, an’ in the winter we’d keep a fire goin’ in it. It ain’t enough land, so we’d have to work too hard. Maybe six, seven hours a day…” “An’ rabbits,” Lennie said eagerly. ‘An’ I’d take care of ‘em. Tell how I’d do that George.’” -Chapter 3 “Well I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.” -Chapter 2 “Slim looked through George and beyond him. ‘Ain’t many guys travel around together,’ he mused. ‘I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole world is scared of each other.” -Chapter 2

“Hardly none of the guys ever travel together. I hardly never seen two guys travel together. You know how the hands are, they just come in and get their bunk and work a month and then they quit and go out alone. Never give a darn about nobody. I just seems kind of funny, a cukoo like him and a smart guy like you travelin’ together. -Chapter 3 “With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a darn about us…We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go.” -Chapter 1 “But not us! An’ why? Because…because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.” -Chapter 1 “ You…an’ me. Ever’body gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from ‘em.” -Chapter 6