When I was writing my google diary for East of Eden, there were so many great quotes that brought up awesome thoughts and ideas for me that I decided to make a new post with them and chat with you guys :)
Discussion
Time
The split second has been growing more and more important to us. And as human activities become more and more intermeshed and integrated, the split tenth of a second will emerge, and then a new name must be made for the split hundredth, until one day, although I don’t believe it, we’ll say, “Oh, the hell with it. What’s wrong with an hour?”
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 530
If Mr. Steinbeck was alive today, I’d be almost ashamed to tell him that we DO have a name for the split hundredth second and we even went so far as to split it into one millionth. It’s called the microsecond. I thought this quote was hauntingly accurate. It made me wonder why such small units of time are really so important. I know that computers are part of the reason we split time so small, but has it made us impatient? Or do we only expect small amounts of time to matter when we are using a computer? Because with me personally, I am extremely impatient with computers. Thirty seconds is just really too long for my website to load. But if someone delivered me pizza or something in 30 seconds I would be amazed. I kind of lean towards the idea that we are impatient with computers and it doesn’t leak that much into regular life. But I want to hear your examples. What areas in your life, besides computers, where small amounts of time really matter? Trains, buses etc?
And why haven’t we reached the point that he jadedly predicated about not being obsessed anymore with the small amounts of time and just saying “what’s wrong with an hour?”
Science
Maybe, kneeling down to atoms, they’re becoming atom-sized in their souls.
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 538
Is that really true? I say kind of. I don’t think you have to leave your morals behind to study science, but I do think that he has a point that if we start studying very small parts of things we forget to appreciate what they are as a whole. Maybe studying frog’s atoms too much could desensitize you to the fact that they are a living thing. Gandalf said “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
Change
There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because the tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good.
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 130
I think this is a beautiful quote about the fear we all have of change. Ebooks are not bad but a lot of people hate them because they are slowly eliminating printed books which have been a part of our culture for so long. And that really makes sense to me. If you removed the technology from what it was replacing, I think change would happen much faster. I’m not saying that’s better or worse, but it would be faster.
Reading
Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 280
First of all – what an awesome quote about reading styles. So who are you more like when you read? Samuel or Tom? I’m a reader more like Tom. Hence the reason I write really long posts like these.
Unhappiness
There is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house and he will die of despair.
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 306
I kind of laughed when I first read this, but when it sunk in, it was kind of sobering how unhappy we can be even though we have everything we need. I know I do this all the time.
Long Distance Relationships
There’s nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps.
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 415
My first thought when I read this was “or Facebook posts.” Sometimes it’s sad to me the relationships I have that are held together by nothing more than kitten pictures on Facebook.
Weltscherz
It was a weltscherz – 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.
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 175.
I remember reading that quote and thinking, “yeah. I’ve felt like that.”
How to Bug Doctors
The medical profession is unconsciously irritated by lay knowledge.
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden pg 587
I love this quote because it feels so true sometimes. Heaven forbid I should google stuff, right?
About John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck III was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. In all, he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and several collections of short stories.
In 1962 Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley region of California, a culturally diverse place of rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place.
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
The bugging doctors quotation made me laugh. It is so true.