Tom’s cowardice was as huge as his courage, as it must be in great men. His violence balanced his tenderness, and himself was a pitted battlefield of his own forces.
It was strange to Old Robert that he, who knew so much more than his neighbors, who had pondered so endlessly, should be not even a good farmer. Sometimes he imagined he understood too many things ever to do anything well.
No one knows how greatness comes to a man. It may lie in his blackness, sleeping, or it may lance into him like those driven fiery particles from outer space. These things, however, are known about greatness: need gives it life and puts it in action; it never comes without pain; it leaves a man changed, chastened, and exalted at the same time-he can never return to simplicity.
You don’t seem like the same man.” “I’m not. Maybe nobody is, for long.
Some children want to be babies and some want to be adults. Few are content with their age.
I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness.
A girl was just a girl to you. They wasn’t nothin’ to you. But to me they was holy vessels. I was savin’ their souls. An’ here with all that responsibility on me I’d just get ’em frothin’ with the Holy Sperit, an’ then I’d take ’em out in the grass.” “Maybe I should of been a preacher,’’ said Joad.
Sto imparando una cosa importante,” disse. “La sto imparando ogni momento, tutt’i giorni. Quando stai male o magari hai bisogno o sei nei guai... va’ dalla povera gente. Soltanto loro ti danno una mano... soltanto loro.
The boys were stunned by the size and grandeur of the West End after their background in a one-room country school. The opulence of having a teacher for each grade made a deep impression on them. It seemed wasteful. But as is true of all humans, they were stunned for one day, admiring on the second, and on the third day could not remember very clearly ever having gone to any other school.
Seems to me you put too much stock in the affairs of children. It probably didn’t mean anything.” “Yes, it meant something. Mr. Trask, do you think the thoughts of people suddenly become important at a given age? Do you have sharper feelings or clearer thoughts now than when you were ten? Do you see as well, hear as well, taste as vitally?
If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank – or the Company – needs – wants – insists – must have – as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time.
At the very first he knew he was lying, but it was not long before he was equally sure that every one of his stories was true.
I wonder if he had a Cathy and who she was.
When our food and clothing and housing all born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea of God.
Little kid comes in late ta school. Teacher says, “Why ya late?” Kid says, “Had a take a heifer down – get ‘er bred.” Teacher says, “Couldn’t your ol’ man do it?” Kid says, “Sure he could, but not as good as the bull.
Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.
She stepped around in front of him and stopped him. “You look here, mister. You kiss me now.” “Why?” She said slowly, “So everybody will know that I’m Mrs. Lettuce-head.
They watch the girls with level goat-eyes and make disparaging remarks to one another while their insides whimper with longing. In.
When he first got the job with Kate, Joe looked for the weaknesses on which he lived – vanity, voluptuousness, anxiety or conscience, greed, hysteria. He knew they were there because she was a woman.
For how can a man without property know the ache of ownership?