George repeats something to Lennie that he has obviously said many times before. "Guys like us , that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world", but George and Lennie are different, as he goes on to say "because I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you". Because of Lennie"s mental immaturity, a thing that George says often calms him down and settles his childish behaviour.

             Because they share this friendship they also share a dream and George regularly talks about saving up enough money to buy their own ranch. "Someday", he says, "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". Being lowly ranch hands they dream of a better life, where they don"t work for anyone but themselves. George, the much smarter of the two, is quite optimistic about it. Lennie, the stupider of the two is childly amused by the dream. He loves soft things, and touching them, and when George tells of the rabbits they will have on the farm, Lennie becomes very excited.

             George and Lennie are the only characters in the book who are not lonely. They have each other and although they may be outsiders because they are not rich they are probably the happiest of the characters because they are the only ones with a solid and trusting friendship.

             A character in the book that suffers from loneliness is Candy. Candy has a lot going against him. Not only is he old, he is missing a hand. He isn"t worth as much to the ranch"s employer as the other men. So he fears unemployment. Candy is the only person on the ranch other than George with a partner, his friend and long-time companion is his dog, though this partnership is doomed to fail when Carlson says "Look Candy. This ol" dog jus" suffers himself all the time. If you was to take him out and shoot.he"d never know what hit him. After reading this quote you know that Candy is going to be forced into killing his dog even if he doesn"t want to.