She was a very small girl with a face as lovely and fresh as her son’s face—a very small girl. Most of the time she knew she was smarter and prettier than anyone else. But now and then a lonely fear would fall upon her so that she seemed surrounded by a tree-tall forest of enemies. Then every thought and word and look was aimed to hurt her, and she had no place to run and no place to hide. And she would cry in panic because there was no escape and no sanctuary.
Then one day she was reading a book—brown, with a silver title, and the cloth was broken and the boards thick. It was Alice in Wonderland. But it was the bottle which said, “Drink me” that had changed her life.
By whipping himself he protected himself against whipping by someone else.
John SteinbeckMaybe the knowledge is too great and maybe men are growing too small. 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.
John SteinbeckThere's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty
John SteinbeckHorace Quinn remembered questioning Adam so very long ago, remembered him as a man in agony. He could still see Adam’s haunted and horrified eyes. He had thought then of Adam as a man of such honesty that he couldn’t conceive anything else. Adam had been set apart—an invisible wall cut him off from the world. You couldn’t get into him—he couldn’t get out to you. But in that old agony there had been no wall.
John SteinbeckHe bathed in icy water and scrubbed and scratched his body with a block of pumice stone, and the pain
of his scraping seemed good to him. He knew that he had to tell his guilt to his father and beg his forgiveness. And he had to humble himself to Aron, not only now but always. He could not live without that. And yet, when he was called out and stood in the room with Sheriff Quinn and his father, he was as raw and angry as a surly dog and his hatred of himself turned outward toward everyone—a vicious cur he was, unloved, unloving.
How do I know?” said Cal. “Am I supposed to look after him?
John SteinbeckI’ve tried to figure it out. When we were children we lived in a story that we made up. But when I grew up the story wasn’t enough. I had to have something else, because the story wasn’t true anymore. Aron didn’t grow up. Maybe he never will. He wanted the story and he wanted it to come out his way. He couldn’t stand to have it come out any other way. I don’t want to know how it comes out. I only want to be there while it’s going on. We were kind of strangers. We kept it going because we were used to it. But I didn’t believe the story anymore.
John SteinbeckAnd now submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.
John SteinbeckAnd in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity.
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