John Steinbeck - East of Eden (1952)

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It's a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it.

John Steinbeck
Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

John Steinbeck
I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.

John Steinbeck
There's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be.

John Steinbeck
And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.

John Steinbeck
Dear Lord,' he said. 'let me be like Aron. Don't make me mean. I don't want to be. If you will let everybody like me, why, I'll give you anything in the world, and if I haven't got it, why, I'll go for to get it. I don't want to be mean. I don't want to be lonely. For Jesus' sake, Amen.

John Steinbeck
And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.

John Steinbeck
I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.

John Steinbeck
There's that fallow land, and here beside me is that fallow man. It seems a waste.

John Steinbeck
To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.

John Steinbeck
Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.

John Steinbeck
One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards.

John Steinbeck
For how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them.

John Steinbeck
I think there must have been some other girl printed somewhere in his heart, for he was a man of love and his wife was not a woman to show her feelings.

John Steinbeck
He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.

John Steinbeck
For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word.

John Steinbeck
I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background.

John Steinbeck
Once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means.

John Steinbeck
A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.

John Steinbeck
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.

John Steinbeck
He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.

John Steinbeck
Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.

John Steinbeck
Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.

John Steinbeck
A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.

John Steinbeck
With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

John Steinbeck
Maybe that's the reason," Adam said slowly, feeling his way. "Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe-maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe — why, maybe it's a kind of reverse.

John Steinbeck
But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there.

John Steinbeck
And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely.

John Steinbeck
But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe.

John Steinbeck
Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers.

John Steinbeck