East of Eden Quotes

Context

This line is from the novel East of Eden, written by John Steinbeck (1952).

What lies east of Eden? These days, probably a Starbucks. But, if you go past the Starbucks, you might eventually get to China.

Lee is the Chinese-American servant of the Trask family: father Adam, and twins Cal and Aron. Sometimes Lee falls into a walking fortune-cookie stereotype, like in this instance, when he parcels out sage wisdom to Aron's girlfriend Abra. At least she doesn't have to crack him in half to get to it.

Good and evil are pretty big themes in East of Eden, since the Trask twins are real-life echoes of the famous Biblical twins, Cain and Abel. If you're not up to date on your Bible knowledge, Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's kids, and the concept of "good twin, bad twin" started with them.

In this quote, Steinbeck explores the idea of whether or not people are born to be good or evil, or if they have a choice. If this sounds like a cool thing to think about, you'll probably want to pick up the book. Or watch the movie, a classic film starring James Dean as the maybe-not-so-evil twin.

Where you've heard it

What Lee is basically saying is that to be perfect and to be good are mutually exclusive. No one is pretending to be perfect, and by pretending you are lying, which, you know, isn't good. So you hear this when someone is telling you it's okay to make mistakes, and to be yourself—human and fallible.

This quote is also a favorite among the self-help crowd.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Anyone pretending to be perfect would be pretentious. This quote is the antidote to that kind of pretentiousness, although it does sound a little like a page out of a positive affirmation book.