East Of Eden Cathy Quotes

Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they have told or because the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also -- either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths.

Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also––either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths.

Adam Trask to Cathy: "You know about the ugliness in people. You showed me the pictures. You use all the sad, weak parts of a man, and God knows he has them." ... "But you-yes, that's right- you don't know about the rest. You don't believe I brought you the letter because I don't want your money. You don't believe I love you. And the men who come to you here with their ugliness, the men in the pictures- you don't believe those men could have goodness and beauty in them. You see only one side, and you think-more than that, you're sure- that's all there is.' "...I seem to know that there's a part of you missing. Some men can't see the colour green, but they may never know they can't. I think you are only part of a human. I can't do anything about that. ut I wonder whether you ever feel that something invisible is all around you. It would be horrible if you knew it was there and couldn't see or feel it. That would be horrible.

I wonder if he had a Cathy and who she was.

Cathy spoke very quietly. “Adam, I didn’t want to come here. I am not going to stay here. As soon as I can I will go away.

Men and women wanted to inspect her, to be close to her, to try to find what caused the disturbance she distributed so subtly. And since this had always been so, Cathy did not find it strange.

Cathy was fourteen when she entered high school. She had always been precious to her parents, but with her entrance into the rarities of algebra and Latin she climbed into clouds where her parents could not follow. They had lost her.

It doesn’t matter that Cathy was what I would have called a monster. Perhaps we can’t understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water? Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fenced, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our own hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too. He found that he had started to hum a droning little tune. He turned, walked through the kitchen, and stood in the doorway, looking at Cathy. She smiled weakly at him, and he thought, What a child! What a helpless child! and a surge of love filled him.

When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so. Now I have bent close with a glass over the small print of her and reread the footnotes, and I wonder if it was true. The trouble is that since we cannot know what she wanted, we will never know whether or not she got it. If rather than running toward something, she ran away from something, we can't know whether she escaped. Who knows but that she tried to tell someone or everyone what she was like and could not, for lack of a common language. Her life may have been her language, formal, developed, indecipherable. It is easy to say that she was bad, but there is little meaning unless we know why.

There must have been some steel cord in her throat, for Cathy's voice could cut like a file when she wished.

Cathy her ne olursa olsun, Adam'daki nuru tetikledi. Adam'ın ruhu havalandı, onu korkudan, hınçtan, ekşimiş anılardan kurtardı. Nur dünyayı aydınlatır ve tıpkı bir işaret fişeğinin savaş alanını değiştirdiği şekilde değiştirir onu. Belki de Adam, gözleri Cathy'yi aşırı aydınlattığı için onu göremiyordu. Adam'ın zihnine güzellik ve şefkatten oluşan bir suret dağlanmıştı: hayal edilemeyecek kadar değerli, temiz ve sevecen, tatlı mı tatlı bir azize; işte Cathy kocasının gözünde bu suretti ve Cathy'nin yaptığı, söylediği hiçbir şey Adam'ın Cathy'sini çarpıtamazdı.

The eyes of Cathy had no message, no communication of any kind.

As though nature concealed a trap, Cathy had from the first a face of innocence. Her hair was gold and lovely; wide-set hazel eyes with upper lids that drooped made her look mysteriously sleepy. Her nose was delicate and thin, and her cheekbones high and wide, sweeping down to a small chin so that her face was heart-shaped. Her mouth was well shaped and well lipped but abnormally small-- what used to be called a rosebud. Her ears were very little, without lobes, and they pressed so close to her head that even with her hair combed up they made no silhouette. They were thin flaps sealed against her head.

Cathy had the one quality required of a great and successful criminal: she trusted no one, confided in no one. Her self was an island.