Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice.
Tags: tom-hamilton, psychology, philosophy, personality, men

Other Quotes by "John Steinbeck"

Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.
Tags: social-functions, rituals, funerals, death
Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.
Tags: after, movement, space, travel, long, time
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.
Tags: his, kind, trap, own, only, man
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
Tags: go, hurt, people, you
Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.
Tags: restored, highest, republic, been, place
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