John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"In that day an educated rich man was acceptable. He might send his sons to college without comment, might wear a vest and white shirt and tie in the daytime of a weekday, might wear gloves and keep his nails clean. And since the lives and practices of rich men were mysterious, who knows what they could use or not use? But a poor manโโwhat need had he for poetry or for painting or for music not fit for singing or dancing?"
91 Quotes
"In that day an educated rich man was acceptable. He might send his sons to college without comment, might wear a vest and white shirt and tie in the daytime of a weekday, might wear gloves and keep his nails clean. And since the lives and practices of rich men were mysterious, who knows what they could use or not use? But a poor manโโwhat need had he for poetry or for painting or for music not fit for singing or dancing?"
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals, because they knew beyond doubt that they were valuable and potentially moral units -- because of this they could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back. Such things have disappeared perhaps because men do not trust themselves anymore, and when that happens there is nothing left except perhaps to find some strong sure man, even though he may be wrong, and to dangle from his coattails."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"There were people who gave everything they had to the war because it was the last war and by winning it we would remove war like a thorn from the flesh of the world and there wouldn't be any more such horrible nonsense."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Nearly everyone has had a box of secret pain, shared with no one."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?"
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Please try not to need me. Thatโs the worst bait of all to a lonely man."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"And as a few strokes on the nose will make a puppy head shy, so a few rebuffs will make a boy shy all over. But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not existโor, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Money's easy to make if it's money you want. But with few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"That's why I'm talking to you. You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"In March the soft rains continued, and each storm waited courteously until its predecessor sunk beneath the ground."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Thereโs a passage in John Steinbeckโs โEast of Edenโ that does a pretty good job describing Californiaโs rainfall patterns:The water came in a 30-year cycle. There would be five to six wet and wonderful years when there might be 19 to 25 inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of 12 to 16 inches of rain. And then the dry years would come ..."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"He thought of the virtues of courage and forbearance, which become flabby when there is nothing to use them on."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"Look nowโin all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst sin we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, โUse it well, use it wisely.โ We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. And we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"While the churches, bringing the sweet smell of piety for the soul, came in prancing and farting like brewery horses in bock-beer time, the sister evangelism, with release and joy for the body, crept in.silently and greyly, with its head bowed and its face covered."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"For how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"I always found in myself a dread of west and love of east. Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that morning came over the peaks of the Gabilans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Santa Lucias. It may be that the birth and death of the day had some part in my feeling about the two ranges of mountains."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
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