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East of Eden quotes
John Steinbeck
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(59)
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“The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that...”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There’s a punishment for it, and it’s usually crucifixion.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Nearly everyone has his box of secret pain, shared with no one.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“A man so painfully in love is capable of self-torture beyond belief.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“It was his first sharp experience with the rule that without money you cannot fight money.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“And the women who had thought they wanted dresses never realized that what they had wanted was happiness.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself?”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“All great and precious things are lonely.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“It is a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it.”
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
“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any...”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“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
,
East of Eden
“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.”
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
“Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit...”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“to a monster the norm is monstrous.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“There’s more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the...”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Nearly everyone in the world has appetites and impulses, trigger emotions, islands of selfishness, lusts just beneath the surface.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Now and then a smart girl came into the profession, but she usually moved up to better things. She got a house of her own or worked successfully at blackmail or married a rich man. There was even a special name for the smart ones. They were...”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“And finally comes culture, which is entertainment, relaxation, transport out of the pain of living.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“And as is usually true of a man of one idea, he became obsessed.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“When you’re a child you’re the center of everything. Everything happens for you.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“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
“There's a capacity for appetite . . . that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Adam spent his next five years doing the things an army uses to keep its men from going insane—endless polishing of metal and leather, parade and drill and escort, ceremony of bugle and flag, a ballet of business for men who aren't doing anything.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Every man has a retirement picture in which he does those things he never had time to do”
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
“Don’t you dare take the lazy way. It’s too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don’t let me catch you doing it! Now—look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do it—not your mother.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Nobody knows why you go to a picnic to be uncomfortable when it is so easy and pleasant to eat at home.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
“Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil.”
John Steinbeck
,
East of Eden
view all 59 quotes
Related topics
love
loneliness
truth
pain
courage
time
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story
freedom
belief
virtue
understanding
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women
lie
self
good
evil
fight
excuse
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