Of Mice and Men Friendship Quotes

He heard Lennie’s whimpering cry and wheeled about. “Blubberin’ like a baby! Jesus Christ! A big guy like you!” Lennie’s lip quivered and tears started in his eyes. “Aw, Lennie!” George put his hand on Lennie’s shoulder. “I ain’t takin’ it away jus’ for meanness. That mouse ain’t fresh, Lennie; and besides, you’ve broke it pettin’ it. You get another mouse that’s fresh and I’ll let you keep it a little while.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 1. Though a big man, Lennie is like a child. But he doesn’t know his own strength and when he pets mice usually ends up killing them. George really cares for him and there is a strong bond between them. But the relationship is a bit like a master and his dog, with George sometimes being very mean to Lennie, and then again very sympathetic.
I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you - John Steinbeck quote In Friendship

“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place…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.”
Lennie broke in. “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.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 1. George extols the virtues of friendship to Lenny, explaining that they are not like everyone else that work in their profession because they travel together. He reassures him of their special relationship and that they will look after each other no matter what happens. In the novella Steinbeck romanticizes and idealizes male friendships.

“It ain’t so funny, him an’ me goin’ aroun’ together,” George said at last. “Him and me was both born in Auburn. I knowed his Aunt Clara. She took him when he was a baby and raised him up. When his Aunt Clara died, Lennie just come along with me out workin’. Got kinda used to each other after a little while.”

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 3. Many at the ranch where George and Lennie work think it odd the two travel together. But George explains how they were both born in Auburn, Alabama, and when Lennie’s aunt passed he now takes care of Lennie.

“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.

Lennie begged, “Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.”
“Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.”
And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.

– John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men, Chapter 6. George shoots his best friend Lennie in the back of the head, to save him from prison or a worse fate at the hands of Curley.
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