海口

We have no especially sacred traditions; except for what someone somehow pieces together from old books. There are bookish dreams here, sir, there is a heart chafed by theories.

“His people had once been great makers of songs so that everything they saw or thought or did or heard became a song. That was very long ago.”
—   John Steinbeck, The Pearl (2)

“It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (3)

“They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (4)

“Although the morning was young, the hazy mirage was up. The uncertain air that magnified some things and blotted out others hung over the whole Gulf so that all sights were unreal and vision could not be trusted; so that sea and land had the sharp clarities and the vagueness of a dream. Thus it might be that the people of the Gulf trust things of the spirit and things of the imagination, but they do not trust their eyes to show them distance or clear outline or any optical exactness.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (14)

“Chance was against it, but luck and the gods might be for it.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (17)

“In the surface of the great pearl he could see dream forms. He picked the pearl from the dying flesh and held it in his palm, and he turned it over and saw that its curve was perfect.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (19)

“A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns, so that there are no two towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (21)

“The essence of pearl mixed with essence of men and a curious dark residue was precipitated.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (23)

“The news stirred up something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food, or like loneliness when love is withheld. The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (23)

“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.”
—   

John Steinbeck, The Pearl (25)