What quotes from Of Mice And Men reflect the American Dream of Lennie, George, Crooks, and Curley?

For Lennie, George, and Crooks, the American Dream is similar: the dream of the independence, stability, and community of living on a small farm. For Lennie more than the others, however, the dream focuses on being able to have animals to tend, especially rabbits. At the end of the novella, George is getting ready to shoot Lennie before Curley and his men can sadistically kill him. To comfort his friend, George tailors the telling of the farm dream to Lennie's needs, with Lennie eagerly joining in:

"Go on," said Lennie. "How's it gonna be. We gonna get a little place." "We'll have a cow," said George. "An' we'll have maybe a pig an' chickens ... an' down the flat we'll have a ... little piece alfalfa—"

"For the rabbits," Lennie shouted.

"For the rabbits," George repeated. "And I get to tend the rabbits." "An' you get to tend the rabbits."

Lennie giggled with happiness. "An' live on the fatta the lan'."

For George, the dream is more about gaining control over his life. For him the farm is a place where he can take a day off when he wants, offer hospitality to whomever he wants, and exclude people like Curley who are difficult:

He looked raptly at the wall over Lennie's head. "An' it'd be our own, an' nobody could can us. If we don't like a guy we can say, 'Get the hell out,' and by God he's got to do it. An' if a fren' come along, why we'd have an extra bunk, an' we'd say, 'Why don't you spen' the night?' an' by God he would."

Crooks has a more limited dream, reflecting the more limited circumstances of Black people in 1930s America. He sees the farm as a refuge where he would be willing to compromise and work without pay to get a berth. But this momentary burst of hope and enthusiasm is destroyed when Curley's wife humiliates him in front of the others by threatening to have him lynched. At this point, Crook shows his realization that the dream is out of reach for him as a Black man:

"Well, jus' forget it," said Crooks. "I didn't mean it. Jus' foolin'. I wouldn' want to go no place like that."

Curley never talks about the American Dream but we can surmise from how he behaves that his version of the dream is being able to dominate others.

Hi Sean,

I'll get you started, but I think you're fully capable of getting a few yourself.

Just to make sure you understand what you're looking for, within the context of OMAM, is that America holds endless possibilities. In the words of James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America:

The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to achieve the fullest stature of which they are capable of, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the circumstances of birth or position.

If we take a look at George, when he reflects on what he and Lennie will have, he is expressing the possibility of the American dream:

Well,' said George, 'we'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof...'

Given that George and Lennie have a lived a poor live and migrant farm workers, these commodities and comforts will mean a great deal to them.

Think about Lennie's "catch phrase", Crooks's conversation with Lennie in the barn, and you should be on the right track.

I'll start you off with one quote from chapter one from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.  On page 15 in my edition George retells Lennie about the house, etc., that they will one day have:

"O.K.  Someday--we're gonna get the jack together and we're gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs and--"

"An' live off the fatta the lan'," Lennie shouted.  "An' have rabbits.  Go on, George!  Tell about what we're gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it.  Tell about that, George."

 This introduces the constant theme in the novel of workers dreaming of owning their own places.  Notably, the workers, including Lennie and George here, do not dream of being millionaires or anything so grandiose.  They simply dream of owning a little land and a little place and of being their own bosses. 

George will describe this dream to Lennie repeatedly in the novel, Lennie will tell it to others, even when he's not supposed to, and Crooks and Candy will want to join in.  The American Dream, or the illusion of it, is central to the work. 

Which quotes from "Of Mice And Men" describe the hands of Lennie, George, Curley, Carlson, and Candy?

With elements of Naturalism, Of Mice and Men portrays men in a struggle for survival against the forces of alienation and disenfranchisement wrought by the Great Depression. Since it has often been said that much can be told about people by their hands, as well as their eyes, it is an interesting exploration of character that examines these hands as representative of these desperate characters. 

Lennie Small

Portrayed in zoomorphic descriptions, Lennie best illustrates what Steinbeck himself described as "the inarticulate and powerful yearning of all men."  When he and George arrive in the clearing of Chapter 1, after flinging himself down and drinking water with his mouth from a green pool, Lennie

dabbled his big paw in the water and wiggled his fingers...

Also, Lennie "held his closed hand" to hide the mouse that he has crushed a mouse with his fingers as he has petted it in his pocket. In Chapter 3 he has been petting the pups so much that George warns him he will kill them.  George says, "...he [Slim] told' you not to pet the pups so much."  When George tells Lennie to give him the pups, Lennie holds "his hands out pleadingly."

These scenes foreshadow the petting of Curley's wife's hair in Chapter 5.  Interestingly, Steinbeck uses the first descriptive word for Lennie's hands from Chapter 1 when Lennie is frightened.  In Chapter 3 during the confrontation with Curley, Lennie "covered his face with his huge paws," but when George puts out his hands and grabs Slim, saying, "Wait a minute" and tells Lennie to let Curley "have it," Lennie "took his hands away from his face."  Then, again, in Chapter 5, after Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife, he "pawed up the hay" trying to cover her.

George Milton

Very little is mentioned about George's hands as he is more cerebral than the other men.  When George points to Lennie,         "[H]e indicated Lennie with his thumb."  As he plays cards with Slim in the bunkhouse, George metaphorically uses his hands as he "lays out his solitaire hand."

It is not until the end of Chapter 5 that there is a focus upon George's hands which yet are ruled by his mind.  As he brings the gun to Lennie's head:

 [T]he hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied.

Later, when the other men arrive at the scene, George "looked steadily at his right hand that had held the gun."

Curley

In at least three instances, Curley is referred to as "handy" (Chapters 2 and 3).   In Chapter 2, "his hands closed into  fists" when he enters the bunkhouse; he is mocked for having his other hand in a "'Glove fulla vaseline,' George said disgustedly."  When he fights with Lennie, his hand is crushed:  "Looks to me like ever' bone in his han' is bust." Ironically, Slim uses the word hand when he bends down to talk to Curley,

"You got your senses in hand enought to listen?...I think you got your han' caught in a machine."

Carlson

Almost no mention of Carlson's hands are made.  He cleans his Luger, but the word hand(s) is not used.  Instead, he points to Candy's dog with his feet, and his "footsteps are heard."  One mention of hands regarding Carlson is figurative as he warns Curley about his wife, "You gonna have something on your hands."

Perhaps, you may wish to examine other characters and how their hands are described.  One such character is Slim, whose hands are "large and lean" and "delicate."  When there is conflict, Slim "subdues one hand over the other." (Chapter 3)