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"She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build laughter out of inadequate materials....She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall."
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"Children can see the beatitudes in nature."
Explore more quotes by John Steinbeck

"Well, we all got to make a livin'.""Yeah," Tom said. "On'y I wisht they was some way to make her 'thout takin' her away from somebody else."

"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."

"I've lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate."

"I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature."

"Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught."

"In March the soft rains continued, and each storm waited courteously until its predecessor sunk beneath the ground."
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