East of Eden
by
When a child first catches adults out—when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just—his world falls into panic
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“Do you take pride in your hurt?” Samuel asked. “Does it make you seem large and tragic?” “I don’t know.” “Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― The Fellowship of the Ring
― The Fellowship of the Ring
“It was a Weltschmerz—which we used to call “Welshrats”— the world sadness that rises into the soul like a gas and spreads despair so that you probe for the offending event and can find none.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“I’ve got things to do,’ he said: ‘my making and my singing, my talking and my walking, and my watching of the country. Tom can’t be always near to open doors and willow-cracks. Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting.”
― The Fellowship of the Ring
― The Fellowship of the Ring
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