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1a61755
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Some day, his mind said, that boy would know what things were in the books and what things were not.
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John Steinbeck |
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41c54bb
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And because they were in some way one thing and one purpose, she smiled with him. And they began this day with hope.
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one
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John Steinbeck |
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4f5d07e
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I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and love..
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reason
reality
science
john-steinbeck
the-winter-of-our-discontent
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John Steinbeck |
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00ec24d
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I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but I do have a choice of how I do it.
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John Steinbeck |
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17878d8
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She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.
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John Steinbeck |
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459622c
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Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is--and a woman too, I guess.
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John Steinbeck |
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28c18f0
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Will and George were doing well in business, and Joe was writing letters home in rhymed verse and making as smart an attack on all the accepted verities as was healthful. Samuel wrote to Joe, sayings, "I would be disappointed if you had not become an atheist, and I read pleasantly that you have, in your age and wisdom, accepted agnosticism the way you'd take a cookie on a full stomach. But I would ask you with all my understanding heart no..
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John Steinbeck |
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2d82061
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I have seen too many men go down, and I never permit myself to forget that one day, through accident or under the charge of a younger, stronger knight, I too will go down.
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heroic
ups-and-downs
knights
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John Steinbeck |
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a9ff871
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Names are a great mystery. I've never known whether the name is molded by the child or the child changed to fit the name. But you can be sure of this- whenever a human has a nickname it is a proof that the name given him was wrong.
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John Steinbeck |
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496b679
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And now submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.
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violence
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John Steinbeck |
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2922e5f
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Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom.
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John Steinbeck |
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b3caeb6
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I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly slow reluctance to leave the stage. It's bad theater as well as bad living
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John Steinbeck |
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3bdb76e
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The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.
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John Steinbeck |
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4db3a6c
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At the roadsides I never had a really good dinner or a really bad breakfast.
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John Steinbeck |
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3fef276
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All we got is the family unbroke.
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John Steinbeck |
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f8846c1
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In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.
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literature
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John Steinbeck |
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6293cfb
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One day Samuel strained his back lifting a bale of hay, and it hurt his feelings more than his back, for he could not imagine a life in which Sam Hamilton was not privileged to lift a bale of hay. He felt insulted by his back, almost as he would have been if one of his children had been dishonest
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John Steinbeck |
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6ec4518
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With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit in no bar room blowin' in our jack jus' because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.
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John Steinbeck |
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f83a18d
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Thou knowest not what bitches women are," Danny said wisely. "I do know," said Pilon. "Thou knowest not." "I do know." "Liar."
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John Steinbeck |
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fcb8756
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The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?
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dark
my-kind-of-book
twisted
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John Steinbeck |
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5143cf0
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I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times.
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John Steinbeck |
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6f013b4
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Well, a man's mind can't stay in time the way his body does.
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time
mind
memory
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John Steinbeck |
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9d363a8
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He did not know, and perhaps this doctor did. And he could not take the chance of pitting his certain ignorance against this man's possible knowledge. He was trapped as his people were always trapped, and would be until, as he had said, they could be sure that the things in the books ere really in the books.
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John Steinbeck |
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b178746
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He smiled at her as a man might smile at a memory.
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John Steinbeck |
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c7f6b38
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Abra was ready ere I called her name. And though I called another, Abra came.
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John Steinbeck |
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6ea8742
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Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.
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John Steinbeck |
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816bfa9
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It's a thing to see when a boy comes home.
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John Steinbeck |
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1a4478d
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They could get it," Doc said. "They could ruin their lives and get money. Mack has qualities of genius. They're all very clever if they want something. They just know the nature of things too well to be caught in wanting."
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John Steinbeck |
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004162c
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The Word is symbol of delight which sucks up men and scenes, trees, plants, factories, and Pekinese. Then the Thing becomes the Word and the back to Thing again, but warped and woven into a fantastic pattern.
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John Steinbeck |
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2d990c8
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The remarkable thing," said Doc, "isn't that they put their tails up in the air--the really incredibly remarkable thing is that we find it remarkable. We can only use ourselves as yardsticks. If we did something as inexplicable and strange we'd probably be praying--so maybe they're praying."
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John Steinbeck |
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ce4fd4a
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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.
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rejection
trauma
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John Steinbeck |
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ba1d2c9
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Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that's what he wants. Mostly it's women or clothes or admiration he really wants and they deflect him.
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John Steinbeck |
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4c094dc
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At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig."
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John Steinbeck |
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d00adaa
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A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.
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John Steinbeck |
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c987dce
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Our people are good people, our people are kind people. Pray God someday kind people won't all be poor. Pray God someday a kid can eat. And the associations of owners know that some day the praying would stop. And there's the end.
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John Steinbeck |
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951bb5a
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And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely."
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John Steinbeck |
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e02e441
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Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, and it would be an insensitive man who did not know it.
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haunting
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John Steinbeck |
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73363dc
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I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads . . . every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.
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heaven
migrants
land
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John Steinbeck |
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7b567db
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The last clear definite function of men--muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need--this is man.
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John Steinbeck |
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2469bc4
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A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin' books or thinkin' or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin', an' he got nothing to tell him what's so an' what ain't so. Maybe if he sees somethin', he don't know whether it's right or not. He can't turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can't tell. He got nothing to measure by.
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John Steinbeck |
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9314972
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A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy--that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.
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John Steinbeck |
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f467c81
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Man, he lives in the jerks-- baby born an' a man dies, an' that's a jerk-- gets a farm an' loses his farm, an' that's a jerk. Woman, it's all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it like that. We ain't gonna die out. People is goin' on-- changin' a little, maybe, but goin' right on.
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John Steinbeck |
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5541d87
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But in the song there was a secret little inner song, hardly perceptible, but always there, sweet and secret and clinging, almost hiding in the counter-melody, and this was the Song of the Pearl That Might Be...
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John Steinbeck |
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9ff1ac1
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I had to be self-contained, a kind of casual turtle carrying his house on his back.
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John Steinbeck |