Taylor Edwards’s Reviews > East of Eden > Status Update

"You're growing up. Maybe that's it," he said softly. "Sometimes I think the world tests us most sharply then, and we turn inward and watch ourselves with horror. But that's not the worst. We think everybody is seeing into us…That's not much relief to you because you don't believe it, but it's the best I can do for you. Try to believe that things are neither so good nor so bad as they seem to you now.”

“…You see, there's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be. What are you like?"

He said, “There’s more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar.”

"Maybe both of us have got a piece of him," said Lee. "Maybe thats what immortality is."

“Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow?"
"What else could I do?"
"You could try again."

“Lord, how the day passes! It’s like a life—so quickly when we don’t watch it and so slowly when we do.” Samuel Trask

“When they grow up—won’t I be looking for something in them?”
“Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them” - Adam and Samuel, discussing the twins