“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”
― East of Eden
― 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. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.”
― The Winter of Our Discontent
― The Winter of Our Discontent
“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . 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. . . . There is no other story. 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?”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.”
― The Grapes of Wrath
― The Grapes of Wrath
Risa’s 2025 Year in Books
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