OF MICE AND MEN – KEY QUOTES: EXAM PREPARATION
Find the following quotations in the text.
Answer the following questions for each one :
1. Who said it?
2. What is the context?
3. What is the importance of the quotation in the novel as a whole?
Chapter 1
“If he finds out what a crazy bastard you are, we won’t get no work”.
“I could get along so easy and nice if I didn’t have you on my tail”.
“I could pet it with my thumb”.
“Guys like us that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world”.
“With us it aint like that. We got a future”.
Chapter 2
“Curley’s like a lot of little guys . He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with
big guys”.
“Listen to me you crazy bastard…Don’t you even take a look at that bitch”.
“Aint many guys travel around together”.
Chapter 3
“Well he seen this girl in a red dress--- he couldn’t let go of that dress”.
“I jus’ wanted to pet him a little”.
“George, how long’s it gonna be till we get that little place an’ live on the fatta the lan’ –
an rabbits”?
“S’pose I went in with you guys--- I aint much good but I could cook and tend the
chickens and hoe the garden some”.
“I ought to have shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger
shoot my dog”.
‘Then Curley’s rage exploded.---
“Get ‘im Lennie”
Leggo of him Lennie”.
Chapter 4
“You’re nuts”--- I see hundreds of men come by the road an’ on the ranches with their
bindles on their back and the same damn thing in their head---.Everybody wants a little
piece of lan’”.
“Think I like to stick in that house alla time”?
“---then he sat down on his bunk and withdrew into himself”.
Chapter 5
“Now maybe George aint gonna let me tend no rabbits, if he fin’s out you got killed”.
“I coulda made something of myself”.
‘And she continued to struggle and her eyes were wild with terror’.
“I shouldn’t of did that. George’ll be mad.An’---he said--- an’ hide in the brush till he
come”.
“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”.
“But Curley’s gonna want to shoot him--- “
Chapter 6
“George gonna give me hell---“
“I tried Aunt Clara ma’am. I tried and tried”.
“Look across the river, Lennie, an’ I’ll tellyou so you can almost see it”.
“You hadda, George. I swear you hadda”.
Find the following quotations in the text.
Answer the following questions for each one :
1. Who said it?
2. What is the context?
3. What is the importance of the quotation in the novel as a whole?
Chapter 1
“If he finds out what a crazy bastard you are, we won’t get no work”.
“I could get along so easy and nice if I didn’t have you on my tail”.
“I could pet it with my thumb”.
“Guys like us that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world”.
“With us it aint like that. We got a future”.
Chapter 2
“Curley’s like a lot of little guys . He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with
big guys”.
“Listen to me you crazy bastard…Don’t you even take a look at that bitch”.
“Aint many guys travel around together”.
Chapter 3
“Well he seen this girl in a red dress--- he couldn’t let go of that dress”.
“I jus’ wanted to pet him a little”.
“George, how long’s it gonna be till we get that little place an’ live on the fatta the lan’ –
an rabbits”?
“S’pose I went in with you guys--- I aint much good but I could cook and tend the
chickens and hoe the garden some”.
“I ought to have shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger
shoot my dog”.
‘Then Curley’s rage exploded.---
“Get ‘im Lennie”
Leggo of him Lennie”.
Chapter 4
“You’re nuts”--- I see hundreds of men come by the road an’ on the ranches with their
bindles on their back and the same damn thing in their head---.Everybody wants a little
piece of lan’”.
“Think I like to stick in that house alla time”?
“---then he sat down on his bunk and withdrew into himself”.
Chapter 5
“Now maybe George aint gonna let me tend no rabbits, if he fin’s out you got killed”.
“I coulda made something of myself”.
‘And she continued to struggle and her eyes were wild with terror’.
“I shouldn’t of did that. George’ll be mad.An’---he said--- an’ hide in the brush till he
come”.
“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”.
“But Curley’s gonna want to shoot him--- “
Chapter 6
“George gonna give me hell---“
“I tried Aunt Clara ma’am. I tried and tried”.
“Look across the river, Lennie, an’ I’ll tellyou so you can almost see it”.
“You hadda, George. I swear you hadda”.
