East of Eden Quotes: Exploring Steinbeck’s Masterpiece

I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart.

?And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.?

You must not forget that a monster is only a variation.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

?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??

There’s more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.

Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind.

Think of the glory. Think of the prestige. Yes, I do want that for you. Something you want for yourself.

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.

?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.?

When your innocence dies, she said, you feel it can never come back, so you hate everyone who has not yet lost it.

There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.},

?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.?

What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate and bifocals?

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 wonder if you can ever make up for the luxury of sleep.?

It was hard and tight. Men were troubled. When an unseen enemy is very close, men want to huddle back to back with their comrades.

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.

I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart.

Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.

They had, it seemed to Samuel, a private literature of insults, and a great many weather-beaten phrases which meant nothing whatever.

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine.

All great and precious things are lonely.

?I guess there are never enough books.?

?There’s more beauty in truth, even if it’s a dreadful beauty.?

?People like you to be something, preferably what they are.?

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.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself. – 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. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

I guess a man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

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. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

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?’ – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

When a child first catches adults out?when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just?his world falls into panic desolation. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

I think everything else I have valued will not be of value if I have heart, courage, and character. – John Steinbeck, East of Eden.