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Book: East of Eden
Quotes of Book: East of Eden
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  1. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    We each peeled a stick and solemnly chewed it; it was Beeman's peppermint, and nothing so delicious has been made since.
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  2. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    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 toward dynamite…. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then-the glory-so that a cricket song sweetens 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 number of his glories.
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  3. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    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 toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then -the glory- so that a cricket song sweetens 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 number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men.
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  4. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    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.
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  5. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    Old Sam Hamilton saw this coming. He said there couldn't be any more universal philosophers. The weight of knowledge is too great for one mind to absorb. He saw a time when one man would know only one little fragment, but he would know it well.""Yes," Lee said from the doorway, "and he deplored it. He hated it.""Did he, now?" Adam asked..."Now you question it, I don't know," he said. "I don't know whether he hated it or I hate it for him... Maybe the knowledge is too great and maybe men are growing too small... Maybe kneeling down to atoms, they're becoming atom-sized in their souls. Maybe a specialist is only a coward, afraid to look out of his little cage. And think what any specialist misses! The whole world over his fence!""We're only talking about making a living.""A living? Or money?" Lee said excitedly. "Money's easy to make if it's money you want. But with a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury, and they want love, and they want admiration.
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  6. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    Maybe everyone is too rich. I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house, and he will die of despair.
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  7. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    They called him a comical genius and carried his stories carefully home, and they wondered at how the stories spilled out on the way, for they never sounded the same repeated in their own kitchens.
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  8. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. That's a running sore.
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  9. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    I seem to know that there's a part of you missing. Some men can't see the color green, but they may never know they can't. I think you are only a part of a human. I can't do anything about that. But I wonder whether you ever feel that something invisible is all around you. It would be horrible if you knew it was there and couldn't see it or feel it.
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  10. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    The Irish do have a despairing quality of gaiety, but they have also a dour and brooding ghost that rides on their shoulders and peers in on their thoughts. Let them laugh too loudly, it sticks a long finger down their throats. They condemn themselves before they are charged, and this makes them defensive always.
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  11. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    Then there were harebells, tiny lanterns, cream white and almost sinful looking, and these were so rare and magical that a child, finding one, felt singled out and special all day long.
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  12. John Steinbeck _ East of Eden

    Do you know that i paid two dollars for {Doxocology} thirty-three years ago? Everything was wrong with him, hoofs like flapjacks, a hock so thick and short and straight there seems no joint at all. he's hammerheaded and swaybacked. He has a pinched chest and a big behind. He has an iron mouth and he still fights the upper. with a saddle he feels as thought you were riding a sled over a gravel pit. He can't trot and he stumbles over his feet when he walks. I have never in thirty-three years fond one good thing about him. He even has an ugly disposition. He is selfish and quarrelsome and mean and disobedient. to this day I don't dare walk behind him because he will surely take a kick at me. when I feed him mush he tries to bite my hand. And I love him.
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