When a child first catches adults out—when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just—his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. 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. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.

About John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck ( STYNE-bek; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and novelist. He was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of...

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If the solution to a problem of absolute disagreement extends to a call for bloodshed, then neither party has demonstrated the intelligence to formulate the question properly.

—John Steinbeck

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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. It was always that way.

—John Steinbeck

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We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say—and to feel—'Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.'

—John Steinbeck

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No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

—John Steinbeck in The Winter of Our Discontent

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No one wants advice, only corroboration.

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Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.

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If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

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History

23 Nov 2014 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

When a child first catches adults out — when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just — his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. 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. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.