From nothing to nothing is no time at all.” Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. And this is right when you think about it. “A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy- that’s the time that seems long in the memory. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many things he did not know about himself.” “As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He did not know what it was about, but all the long lack of holding, of rocking, of caressing, the hunger for breast and nipple, and the softness of a lap, and the voice-tone of love and compassion, and the sweet feeling of anxiety- all of these were in his passion, and he did not know it because he did not know that such things existed, so how could he miss them?” And he ached toward her with a longing that was passionate and hot. He wondered how she had dared such wantonness. For Alice had been naked- she had been smiling. “He breathed excitedly, high against his throat. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is a tedious job to build them up again they never quite shine. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. “The gods are fallen and all safety gone.

“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. “Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition.”

East of eden by john steinbeck