Of Mice and Men Crooks Quotes

George patted a wrinkle out of his bed, and sat down. “Give the stable buck hell?” he asked.
“Sure. Ya see the stable buck’s a n****r.”
“N****r, huh?”
“Yeah. Nice fella too…The boss gives him hell when he’s mad. But the stable buck don’t give a damn about that.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 2, George and Candy talk about Crooks. The boss makes Crooks the whipping boy of the ranch and lashes out at him whenever he is angry. In this novella, Crooks is the symbol of 1930s racism and prejudice.

“I was born right here in Southern California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ’bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice. My ol man didn’t like that. I never knew till long later why he didn’t like that. But I know now.” He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Crooks recalls how as a child his father didn’t like him playing with white kids. He didn’t know why then, but now he does. This speaks to the racial divide then in America.

“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 settin’ still not talkin’. It don’t make no difference, no difference…It’s just the talking. It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Crooks to Lennie while they are talking about being lonely. Crooks is so desperate for companionship he will appreciate a person who doesn’t understand him or converse with him. This is why he keeps Lennie around him.
A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody - John Steinbeck quote In Companionship

“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? S’pose you had to sit out here an’ read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody – to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Crooks on a black man’s loneliness with nobody to talk to because he is so secluded from the social circle. This passage highlights the need for companionship and the oppressive nature of society for Crooks, who faces both loneliness and discrimination.

“A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin’ books or thinkin’ or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin’, an’ he got nothing to tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees somethin’, he don’t know whether it’s right or not. He can’t turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was asleep, an’ then it would be all right. But I jus’ don’t know.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Crooks to Lennie. The themes of loneliness, the predatory nature of people, and discrimination are all addressed here.

The stable buck went on dreamily, “I remember when I was little kid on my old man’s chicken ranch. Had two brothers. They was always near me, always there. Used to sleep right in the same room, right in the same bed – all three. Had a strawberry patch. Had an alfalfa patch. Used to turn the chickens out in the alfalfa on a sunny morning. My brothers’d set on a fence rail an’ watch ’em – white chickens they was.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Crooks dreams about his ideal world, when he was a child on his father’s chicken ranch. Companionship and plentiful food are both parts of Crooks’ dream.
Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land - John Steinbeck quote In Heaven

“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. Hunderds 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. Everybody 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’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. A cynical Crooks on George and Lennie’s dream. He foresees their dream is going to end in eventual disappointment. What Crooks says can also be seen as a comment on the death of the American Dream.

She turned on him in scorn. “Listen, N*****,” she said. “You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?”
Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.
She closed on him. “You know what I could do?”
Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, you keep your place then, N*****. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Curley’s wife viciously attacks Crooks and threatens to have him hung, after he tells her she does not belong in his bunk and should leave.

Crooks called, “Candy!”
“Huh?”
“‘Member what I said about hoein’ and doin’ odd jobs?”
“Yeah,” said Candy. “I remember.”
“Well, jus’ forget it,” said Crooks. “I didn’ mean it. Jus’ foolin’. I wouldn’ want to go no place like that.”
“Well, O.K., if you feel like that. Goodnight.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. After Curley’s wife comes in and mocks the men’s dream of a farm, Crooks’s hope is broken and he realizes the dream is just a fantasy.
Close