Quotes from East Of Eden by 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. (Chapter 1, p.6)

"He developed a love for poor people he could not have conceived if he had not been poor himself." (p.57)

"Some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread their hatred around like butter on hot bread." p. 144

"In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often, men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved by false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this." (p. 307)

"There are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities sometimes concern facets a man does not know he had. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and clearness is there, maybe the result of the black reasoning. And again there mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood." p. 327

"Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk." p. 434

"War. [is] a reversal of the rules where a man is permitted to kill all the humans he can." p. 520

If you can go down so low, you will be able to rise higher than you can concieve, and you will know holy joy, a companionship almost like that of a heavenly company of angels.

"I know that sometimes a lie is used in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. That is a running sore. (Chp 35: p. 493)

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning towards dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes like air, and every deep drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in your brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all his life in the gray, and the land and the trees of him dark and somber. The events, even important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then-the glory-so that a cricket songsweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and the number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates to us in the world. It is the mother of all creativness, and it sets each man separate from all other men.

"I guess if a man had go shuck off everything he had, inside and out, he'd manage to hide a few little sins somewhere for his discomfort. They're the last things we'll give up." p. 168

"…nearly all men are afraid, and they don’t even know what causes their fear—shadows,
perplexities, dangers without names or numbers, fear of a faceless death. But if you can bring
yourself to face not shadows but real death, then you need never be afraid again, at least not in
the same way you were before. Then you will be a man set apart from other men, safe where
other men may cry in terror. This is the great reward. "

"Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself?"

It doesn’t matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can’t understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water? Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

Samuel said satirically, “It’s my duty to take this thing of yours and kick it in the face,
then raise it up and spread slime on it thick enough to blot out its dangerous light…. I should
hold it up to you muck-covered and show you its dirt and danger. I should warn you to look
closer until you can see how ugly it really is. I should ask you to think of inconstancy and give
you examples. I should give you Othello’s handkerchief. Oh, I know I should. And I should
straighten you out of your tangled thoughts, show you that the impulse is gray as lead and rotten as a dead cow in wet weather. If I did my duty well, I could give you back your bad old life and feel good about it, and welcome you back to the musty membership in the lodge…. It is the duty of a friend. I had a friend who did the duty once for me. But I’m a false friend…. It’s a lovely thing, preserve it, and glory in it. And I’ll dig your wells…. (169)

“Go through the motions, Adam.”
“What motions?”
“Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.” (213)

The Cain and Abel story (265-270)
"…a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not
interesting—only the deeply personal and familiar. " (268)

"The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears….
And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection,
and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind…if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is."

A child may ask, “What is the world’s story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we’re at it, what’s the story about?”
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. 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. I think this is the
only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice
were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this
despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners.
There is not other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have
left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

“Who he [Croesus the king] asked, “is the luckiest person in the world?”… And when Solon did not mention him, Croesus was forced to say, “Do you not consider me lucky?” Solon did not hesitate in his answer. “How can I tell?” he said. “You aren’t dead yet.” And this answer must have haunted Croesus dismally as his luck disappeared, and his wealth and his kingdom. And as he was being burned on a tall fire, he may have thought of it and perhaps wished he had not asked or had not been answered.

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 vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man
comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life
must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose
between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that
our death brings no pleasure to the world.

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 exist—or, worse, will draw it forth from
people simply by expecting it. (440)

Don’t you dare take the lazy way. It’s too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry….
Whatever you do, it will be you who do it—not your mother. (445)