Of Mice and Men Famous Quotes, Sorted by Theme and Chapter

The most quoted line in Of Mice and Men is George’s, in Chapter 1: “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place.” Everything else in Steinbeck’s 1937 novella works off that sentence — the dream, the friendship, and the ending all measure themselves against it.

The book has six unnumbered sections, normally referred to as chapters 1 through 6. Quotes below are given with the speaker and the chapter, grouped by the theme they are usually set as an essay question.

Quotes about loneliness

Loneliness is the condition the book starts from. Steinbeck sets it in Soledad, California, and soledad is Spanish for solitude.

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place.” — George, Chapter 1. The thesis statement of the novella, delivered before the two men even reach the ranch.

“Ain’t many guys travel around together. I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” — Slim, Chapter 2. Slim is the ranch’s most reliable observer, so his diagnosis carries weight. Note that he offers fear, not circumstance, as the cause.

“A guy needs somebody — to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody.” — Crooks, Chapter 4. Crooks is the only Black man on the ranch and sleeps alone in the harness room. He says this after admitting he has been reading the same book for years because there is nobody to talk to.

“I get lonely. You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad.” — Curley’s wife, Chapter 5. She is never named in the book, which is part of the point. Every conversation she starts is read as a provocation, so she has no way to be lonely out loud.

Useful essay angle: each of the three most isolated characters — Crooks, Candy, Curley’s wife — says a version of the same thing, and none of them says it to somebody who can help.

Quotes about the dream

The farm is the book’s engine. George recites it, Lennie demands it, Candy funds it, and Crooks kills it in one sentence.

“An’ live off the fatta the lan’.” — Lennie, Chapter 1. Lennie interrupts to finish the story, which is how you know he has heard it a hundred times. The line recurs at the end of Chapter 6, moments before George shoots him.

“I seen hunderds 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. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it.” — Crooks, Chapter 4. Crooks has watched this specific dream pass through the bunkhouse for decades. He is the only character who states plainly that it never happens.

“Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.” — Crooks, Chapter 4. The compressed version, and the line most often set as a quotation to analyse.

“I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her.” — George, Chapter 5, to Candy, standing over Curley’s wife’s body. George admits the farm was a story he told to keep Lennie steady, not a plan.

“God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble.” — George, Chapter 1. Worth pairing with the loneliness quotes: George’s private dream and his shared dream point in opposite directions, and the book never resolves that.

Quotes about friendship

“With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.” — George, Chapter 1. The second half of the loneliness speech. The friendship is defined by contrast, as an exception to the rule.

“An’ I got you. We got each other, that’s what, that gives a hoot in hell about us.” — Lennie, Chapter 1, completing George’s sentence.

“No, Lennie. I ain’t mad. I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now. That’s a thing I want ya to know.” — George, Chapter 6, in the last minutes before the shooting.

“You hadda, George. I swear you hadda.” — Slim, Chapter 6. The only sympathy anybody offers, and it comes from the one man whose judgement the ranch respects.

“Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” — Carlson, Chapter 6. The final line of the book, spoken by a man who cannot see that anything has happened. Steinbeck ends on incomprehension rather than grief, which is why the closing line comes up so often in exam questions.

Quotes about powerlessness

Everyone in the novella is disposable, and the book keeps demonstrating it with small, practical details.

“I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.” — Candy, Chapter 3. Candy’s dog is shot because it is old and smells. Candy is old and one-handed. The parallel is deliberate, and it sets up George’s decision in Chapter 6.

“I ain’t much good with on’y one hand. I lost my hand right here on this ranch.” — Candy, Chapter 3. He is asking to buy into the farm because he can see the end of his usefulness coming.

“Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego — nothing to arouse either like or dislike.” — narrator, Chapter 4, after Curley’s wife threatens him.

“I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” — Curley’s wife to Crooks, Chapter 4. The scene shows the ranch hierarchy in full: the loneliest woman on the ranch still outranks the loneliest man, and she uses it.

“Coulda been in the movies, an’ had nice clothes — all them nice clothes like they wear.” — Curley’s wife, Chapter 5. Her version of the farm. It fails for the same reason theirs does.

Where the title comes from

The title is taken from Robert Burns’s 1785 poem “To a Mouse,” which contains the lines “The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley” — best-laid plans often go wrong. The poem is spoken by a farmer who has destroyed a mouse’s nest with a plough, and it argues that the mouse is luckier than the man, because it cannot dread the future. That reading maps directly onto Lennie and George.

Using these quotes in an essay

Quote short and quote exactly. Steinbeck’s dialect spelling — fatta the lan’, hunderds, knowed — is part of the text, so reproduce it rather than correcting it, and do not add [sic]. Where you need to trim the middle of a speech, use an ellipsis in square brackets.

Because editions of the novella have different page numbers, most teachers accept chapter references. Check what your department wants before you submit. If you are working to MLA, the mechanics are covered in how to cite a quote from a book, and the analysis method — what to do with the quote once it is on the page — is in how to analyze a quote in an essay. For similar sourced quote lists on other set texts, see Macbeth quotes by act and scene and An Inspector Calls quotes by character.

FAQ

What is the most famous quote in Of Mice and Men?
George’s line in Chapter 1: “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place.” It is the quote most often set for analysis and the one the rest of the book answers.

What are the important quotes about the American Dream?
Lennie’s “An’ live off the fatta the lan'” (Chapter 1), Crooks’s “never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it” and “nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land” (Chapter 4), and George’s admission in Chapter 5 that he knew from the start they would never do it.

What is the last line of Of Mice and Men?
Carlson’s: “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” The book closes with a character who has understood nothing.

Does Of Mice and Men have chapters?
The six sections are unnumbered in the text, but they are universally referred to as chapters 1 to 6, and most teachers accept chapter numbers as references.

Where does the title come from?
From Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” (1785): “The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley.”