of mice and men--quotes

“Uh-uh. Jus’ a dead mouse, George. I didn’t kill it. Honest! I found it. I found it dead.”

This passage shows Lennie must have a habit of killing mice. 

 “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 could live so easy and maybe have a girl.”

This passage shows George’s frustration with Lennie’s childlike behaviors, which get them both in trouble.

“They was so little,” he said, apologetically. “I’d pet ‘em, and pretty soon they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead—because they was so little.”

This passage shows Lennie doesn’t understand his own strength.

 “Well, I could.  I could go off in the hills there. Some place I’d find a cave.”

This passage shows Lennie has no idea how helpless he is without George.  It also shows Lennie can manipulate George to feel sorry for him.

“No—look! I was jus’ foolin’, Lennie. ‘Cause I want you to stay with me.”

This passage shows George, although he gets frustrated with Lennie, does truly care about his well being.

“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’ our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go.”

George talking to Lennie about how they’re are different from all other migrant workers, and “lucky” to have each other.

 “Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.”

The boss wonders why George cares about Lennie.

He said ominously, “Well, he better watch out for Lennie….no rules”

Curley has just tried to provoke George and Lennie.  George knows Lennie can definitely hurt Curley.

Lennie cried out suddenly—“I don’ like this place, George.  This ain’t no good place. I wanna get outta here.”

Lennie still listens to his instincts because he has the mind of a small child.

“He’s a nice fella,” said Slim. “Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella.”

George understands and accepts Lennie, when most guys can’t or won’t.

“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 there, why he’d never know what hit him.”

This passage shows the strong (Carlson) prevail over the weak (Candy/Smiley).

“She’s gonna make a mess. They’s gonna be a bad mess about her. She’s a jail bait all set on the trigger.”

George talking to Whit about Curley’s wife looking for Slim.

They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.

Lennie and George thought they had found a way to get their own  place.

“I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.”

Candy regrets allowing Carlson to shoot Smiley and feels guilty.

“Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he’s goin’ to come back. S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that?...A guy needs somebody—to be near him.” He whined, “A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long as he’s with you. I tell ya,” he cried, “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.”

This passage shows Crooks’ loneliness as a black man in that time period, on that ranch.

 “Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.”

Crooks knows, through experience, that no one ever gets off these ranches, unless they die first.

“I been here a long time,” he said. “An’ Crooks been here a long time. This’s the first time I ever been in his room.”

How segregated Crooks has been all these years

“Sure they all want it. Everybody wants a little bit of land, no much. Jus’ som’thin’ that was his.”

Candy is defending their plans to get their own place to Crooks.

“Maybe you guys better go,” he said. “I ain’t sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don’t like ‘em.”

Crooks realizes he is better off in his own snug room, rather than trying to fit in somewhere he has never been welcomed in the past.

 “You guys comin’ in an’ setting’ made me forget. What she says is true.”

This passage symbolizes the power of that time period, on that ranch.  Even though Curley’s wife is a woman and has no importance, she still has power over the “bindle stiffs” like Candy, Crooks, and Lennie.

“God damn you,” he cried. “Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice.”

This passage shows that Lennie doesn’t understand his own strength and is blaming the puppy for dying.

“I coulda made somethin’ of myself.” She said darkly, “Maybe I will yet.”

Curley’s wife confides in Lennie that marrying Curley was a bad idea.  This passage shows how desperate she is for attention and a new life.

 For a moment he seemed bewildered. And then he whispered in fright, “I done a bad thing. I done another bad thing.”

Lennie finally realizes he has done something wrong, but it is too late.  George can’t fix this.

 “What we gonna do now, George? What we gonna do now?”

This passage is unclear in showing whether Candy is worried about Lennie, or worried about getting off the ranch without Lennie’s money.  It shows selfishness, which was totally normal at that time.

“I guess we gotta get ‘im an’ lock ‘im up. We can’t let ‘im get away. Why, the poor bastard’d starve.”

This passage shows George’s compassion for Lennie, even though Lennie just did the ultimate bad thing.

“You an’ me can get that little place, can’t we, George? You an’ me can go there an’ live nice, can’t we, George? Can’t we?”

Candy is worried that the plan has been ruined.  This passage shows selfishness, which was totally normal at that time.

“—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.”

George is confessing to Candy that he should have known better than to count on Lennie to behave. His expectations were too high.

“I ain’t mad.  I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now.  That’s a thing I want ya to know.”

George doesn’t want to upset Lennie.  This passage shows true friendship and compassion, for George to put Lennie’s feelings above his own.

Slim came directly to George and sat down beside him, sat very close to him. “Never you mind,” said Slim. “A guy got to sometimes.”

Slim was sympathetic to George’s situation, when no one else was.

“Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?”

Carlson and Curley cannot understand why George and Slim seem so upset over what just happened.  This passage demonstrates the “every man for himself” mentality of that time period.