Leah Downs > Leah's Quotes

“He was born in fury and he lived in lightning. Tom came headlong into life. He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them. When he read his father's books, he was the first. He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day. His mind plunged like a colt in a happy pasture, and when later the world put up fences, he plunged against the wire, and when the final stockade surrounded him, he plunged right through it and out. And as he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I remember that I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green in the branches against the sky and wishing, as I always did, that I could walk home across the sky instead of through the village.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen . . . A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I take a pleasure in inquiring into things. I’ve never been content to pass a stone without looking under it. And it is a black disappointment to me that I can never see the far side of the moon.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“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

“They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then—how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“When you're a child you're the center of everything. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“No one who is young is ever going to be old.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I believe it is customary to get one's washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted-- my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked.
'I don't see how it could be any other way,' said Lee. 'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't let me catch you doing it! Now -- look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“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…I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb."
"You can’t make a race horse of a pig."
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“I could be held back just by being needed. Please try not to need me. That's the worst bait of all to a lonely man.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“You're getting well,' Samuel said. 'Some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden