Quote 1
"I was only foolin', George. I don't want no ketchup. I wouldn't eat no ketchup if it was right here beside me."
"If it was here, you could have some."
"But I wouldn't eat none, George. I'd leave it all for you. You could cover your beans with it and I wouldn't touch none of it." (1.93-95)
Lennie may not be able to look out for George, but he does what he can for his friend—like give him all the imaginary ketchup.
Quote 2
"Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to." (1.113)
It's hard out there for a ranchhand. Steinbeck seems to be saying that the loneliness is even worse than the poverty: like Lennie and George, you can bear a lot more if you have a friend.
Quote 3
"If you don' want me I can g off in the hills an' find a cave. I can go away any time."
"No—look! I was jus' foolin', Lennie. 'Cause I want you to stay with me." (1.103-104)
Poor Lennie almost literally offers to go jump in a lake if George doesn't want him anymore, but George doesn't really want the chance to stay in a whorehouse for as long as he wants. Hanging out with Lennie is better than a gallon of whisky any night.
Quote 4
"I don't want no fights," said Lennie. He got up from his bunk and sat down at the table, across from George. Almost automatically George shuffled the cards and laid out his solitaire hand. He used a deliberate, thoughtful, slowness. (3.177)
Lennie avoids fighting by showing off his connection with George, and what does George do? Play solitaire. Is this showing us that Lennie and George don't really have a true connection—or is it evidence that you don't always need to be talking to be together?
Quote 5
"Tha's good," he said. "You drink some, George. You take a good big drink." He smiled happily. (1.7)
George has just reamed Lennie out for drinking too fast, but Lennie is so innocent that he doesn't even get mad. He just smiles "happily" when George takes a drink. From this perspective, innocence doesn't look too bad.
Quote 6
George looked sharply at him. "What'd you take outa that pocket?"
"Ain't a thing in my pocket," Lennie said cleverly.
"I know there ain't. You got it in your hand…" (1.25-27)
We hope you had a good chuckle, because Lennie isn't actually being "clever" at all. He's like a toddler playing hide and seek who puts a bowl over his head: if he can't see you, you can't see him. Precious moments, right?
Quote 7
Lennie cried out suddenly—"I don' like this place, George. This ain't no good place. I wanna get outa here." (2.165)
Out of the mouth of babes: Lennie may not be book-smart (we're not even sure he can read, come to think of it), but he has a kind of gut-instinct that makes him sensitive to bad vibes on the ranch. Too bad George, who's a relative genius compared to Lennie, doesn't listen.
Quote 8
Lennie went back and looked at the dead girl. The puppy lay close to her. Lennie picked it up. "I'll throw him away," he said. "It's bad enough like it is." (5.59)
Lennie knows he's done a "bad" thing, but he's so innocent that he somehow thinks throwing away the puppy is going to make it look better. Well, fair enough. It is always worse when the dog dies.
Quote 9
"George—why ain't we goin' on to the ranch and get some supper? They got supper at the ranch."
George rolled on his side. "No reason at all for you. I like it here. Tomorra we're gonna go to work. I seen thrashin' machines on the way down. That means we'll be bucking grain bags, bustin' a gut. Tonight I'm gonna lay right here and look up. I like it." (1.60-61)
Lying around in a field looking up at the stars with your best friend by your side sounds like a pretty good definition of freedom to us.
Quote 10
When the sound of the footsteps had died away, George turned on Lennie. "So you wasn't gonna say a word. You was gonna leave your big flapper shut and leave me do the talkin'. Damn near lost us the job."
Lennie stared helplessly at his hands. "I forgot, George."
"Yea, you forgot. You always forget, an' I got to talk you out of it." He sat down heavily on the bunk. "Now he's got his eye on us. Now we got to be careful and not make no slips. You keep your big flapper shut after this." He fell morosely silent. (2.56-59)
Loose lips sink ships… and just might get Lennie (if not George) thrown in jail, or worse—might lose them the opportunity to work the job that will help them buy their little bit of freedom.
Quote 11
"For two bits I'd shove out of here. If we can get jus' a few dollars in the poke we'll shove off and go up the American River and pan gold. We can make maybe a couple of dollars a day there, and we might hit a pocket."
Lennie leaned eagerly toward him. "Le's go, George. Le's get outta here. It's mean here."
"We gotta stay," George said shortly. "Shut up now. The guys'll be comin' in." (2.166-168)
George might have fantasies of panning for gold, but he's a realist. The freedom to starve while chasing a fool's dream is not the kind of freedom he wants.
Quote 12
Lennie said, "I thought you was mad at me, George."
"No," said George. "No, Lennie, I ain't mad. I never been mad, and I ain' now. That's a thing I want ya to know." (6.87-88)
Lennie's biggest fear isn't being locked up: it's being locked out. To him, being on George's bad side would be about worse than anything. Apparently freedom and confinement don't have to include locks.
Quote 13
Lennie watched him with wide eyes, and old Candy watched him too. Lennie said softly, "We could live offa the fatta the lan'."
"Sure," said George. "All kin's a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We'd jus' live there. We'd belong there. There wouldn't be no more runnin' round the country and gettin' fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we'd have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house." (3.202-203)
Casual racism aside, notice that George and Lennie's little version of the American Dream includes a kind of masculine domesticity—no girls allowed.
Quote 14
"Where we goin', George?"
The little man jerked down the brim of his hat and scowled over at Lennie. "So you forgot that awready, did you? I gotta tell you again, do I? Jesus Christ, you're a crazy bastard!"
"I forgot," Lennie said softly. (1.14-16)
Simmer down, George. Almost as soon as we meet him, George is stomping around the novel flinging verbal abuse as Lennie. Does Lennie acknowledge this as a kind of violence, or is he generally unaffected by it?
Quote 15
Lennie looked sadly up at him. "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. I wish’t we’d get the rabbits pretty soon, George. They ain’t so little." (1.79)
Hm. On a second look, it doesn't seem like these mice deaths are so accidental after all. They take place when Lennie retaliates against them by pinching their heads. He might not mean to kill them, but he definitely means to hurt them.
Quote 16
"I wasn't kicked in the head with no horse, was I, George?"
"Be a damn good thing if you was," George said viciously. "Save ever'body a hell of a lot of trouble." (2.61-62)
It's a good think Lennie isn't actually George's kid, because we're pretty sure that Child Protective Services would have to get involved. Lennie's an adult—but does that make it okay? Or does his mental disability make him so childlike that George might as well be abusing a kid?
Quote 17
Lennie smiled with this bruised mouth. "I didn't want no trouble," he said. He walked toward the door, but just before he came to it, he turned back. "George?"
"What you want?"
"I can still tend the rabbits, George?"
"Sure. You ain't done nothing wrong."
"I di'n't mean no harm, George." (3.268-272)
Um, okay. Lennie may have meant no harm, but he still has a tendency to kill the animals in his care. So, maybe "doing no harm" isn't the best criteria for putting a man in charge of a warren full of rabbits.
Quote 18
"He was so little," said Lennie. "I was jus playin’ with him… an’ he made like he’s gonna bite me… an’ I made like I was gonna smack him … an’… an’ I done it. An’ then he was dead. She consoled him. "Don’t you worry none. He was jus’ a mutt. You can get another one easy. The whole country is fulla mutts." (5.25-26)
Tell us one more time that Lennie's peaceful and harmless? Here he is again retaliating against an animal maybe 1/32nd of his size.
Quote 19
"…You go on get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunk house, and you ain’t wanted in my room."
"Why ain’t you wanted?" Lennie asked.
"’Cause I’m black…" (4.10-11)
Lennie can’t fathom racial prejudice. We’ve already seen he doesn’t have a lot of the societal niceties down (like when to pet girls and when not to pet girls), but it’s actually pretty interesting that Lennie doesn’t think of Crooks as being different from himself. Remember, Lennie is more in touch with the natural side of things than the "civilized" side of things, so he doesn’t accept the "institution" of racism.
Quote 20
[Lennie] said gently, "George… I ain’t got mine. I musta lost it." He looked down at the ground in despair.
"You never had none, you crazy bastard. I got both of ‘em here. Think I’d let you carry your own work card?"
Lennie grinned with relief. (1.22-24)
George looks out for Lennie, so Lennie is definitely stronger with George around. But is the same true for George? Or does Lennie just bring him down?