Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 1 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

Often he wearily considered his existence, ringed around with little defeats which mocked it as street children torment a cripple. It was strange to Old Robert that he, who knew so much more than his neighbors, who had pondered so endlessly, should be not even a good farmer. Sometimes he imagined he understood too many things ever to do anything well.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

He lay propped on one elbow and stared past the fire into his thoughts. The long gray afternoon, piercing to this mysterious night, had called up strong yearnings in him, the seeds of which were planted months before. It was a desire for a thing he could not name.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Young Henry was conscious, this night, that he had lived on for fifteen tedious years without accomplishing any single thing of importance.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“But, Robert, there’s something gone out of me like a little winking light. I used to lie on the decks of ships at night and think and think how I’d talk and boast when only I came home again—but it’s more like a child, I am, come home to cry. Can you understand that, Robert? Can you understand that at all?”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 2 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

But Robert answered her impatiently.

“To you he is only a little boy who must be made to say his prayers of nights and to wear a coat into the fields. You have not felt the polished steel of him as I have. Yes, to you that quick, hard set of his chin is only the passing stubbornness of a headstrong child. But I do know; and I say to you, without pleasure, that this son of ours will be a great man, because—well—because he is not very intelligent. He can see only one desire at a time. I said he tested his dreams; he will murder every dream with the implacable arrows of his will. This boy will win to every goal of his aiming; for he can realize no thought, no reason, but his own. And I am sorry for his coming greatness because of a thing Merlin once spoke of. You must look at the granite jaws of him, Mother, and the trick he has of making his cheek muscles stand out with clenching them.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

There were outland forces, nameless foreign ghosts, calling to him and beckoning from across the mysterious sea.

There was no desire in him for a state or condition, no picture in his mind of the thing to be when he had followed his longing; but only a burning and a will overpowering to journey outward and outward after the earliest risen star.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Henry said, “I have lost no love, sir, but my dream is over the sea that I do not know. I know Cambria.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Merlin searched the boy’s face closely. Sadly he looked up at his harps. “I think I understand,” he said softly. “You are a little boy. You want the moon to drink from as a golden cup; and so, it is very likely that you will become a great man—if only you remain a little child. All the world’s great have been little boys who wanted the moon; running and climbing, they sometimes caught a firefly. But if one grow to a man’s mind, that mind must see that it cannot have the moon and would not want it if it could—and so, it catches no fireflies.”

“But did you never want the moon?” asked Henry in a voice hushed with the room’s quiet.

“I wanted it. Above all desires I wanted it. I reached for it and then—then I grew to be a man, and a failure. But there is this gift for the failure; folk know he has failed, and they are sorry and kindly and gentle. He has the whole world with him; a bridge of contact with his own people; the cloth of mediocrity. But he who shields a firefly in his hands, caught in reaching for the moon, is doubly alone; he only can realize his true failure, can realize his meanness and fears and evasions.

“You will come to your greatness, and it may be in time you will be alone in your greatness and no friend anywhere; only those who hold you in respect or fear or awe. I am sorry for you, boy with the straight, clear eyes which look upward longingly. I am sorry for you, and—Mother Heaven! how I envy you.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 3 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

He had crept from the house in the false dawn, and started briskly walking on the road to Cardiff. There was a frozen, frightened thing in his heart, and a wondering whether he wanted to go at all. To his mind the fear had argued that if he waited to say good-by he would not be able to leave the stone house, not even for the Indies.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

He passed through villages whose names were unknown to him; friendly little clusters of rude huts, and the people staring at him as at a stranger. It was a joyous thing to young Henry. Always he had stared at others who were strangers, dreaming their destinations and the delicious mystery that sent them forth. The name of Stranger made them grand beings with mighty purposes. And now he was a stranger to be thought about and stared at with a certain reverence. He wanted to shout, “I’m on my way to the Indies,” to widen their dull eyes for them and raise their respect. Silly, spineless creatures, he thought them, with no dream and no will to leave their sodden, dumpy huts.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

They kneaded the soil in the fields with their fingers, and as their years of servitude crawled on their eyes deadened, their shoulders slumped, and a tired, dull imbecility stretched cloying webs in their brain.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

When these men were loosed from their slavery, they wandered listlessly about for a time, and watched the others go to work with something of longing. Then, after a little, they either signed new papers of indenture, or went marauding like tigers from a broken cage.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 4 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

Henry had learned many things in dealing with the slaves. He knew that he must never let them see what he was thinking, for then, in some ineffable way, they had a hold on him which would be difficult to shake off. He must be cold and distant and insulting to those below him. With few exceptions, they would take insult as the sign of his superiority. Men always believed him what he seemed to be, and he could seem to be almost anything.

If one were brilliantly dressed, all men presumed him rich and powerful, and treated him accordingly. When he said things as though he meant them, nearly all acted as though he meant them. And, most important of his lessons—if he were perfectly honest and gave a strict accounting in nine consecutive dealings, then the tenth time he might steal as much as he wished, and no one would dream of suspecting him, so only he had brought the nine times forcibly enough to the attention of all men.

A growing pile of golden coins in a box under his bed gave ample proof of the validity of this last lesson. And he followed all his teachings. He never gave any man the least hold on him, nor insight into his motives and means and abilities and shortcomings. Since most men did not believe in themselves, they could not believe in one they understood to be like themselves.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

He gazed about him and knew that he should be satisfied, but his eyes had never lost the trick of looking out beyond distance and over the edge of the present. A little hectoring wish ran through his waking and dreaming like a thin red line. He must get back to the sea and ships. The sea was his mother and his mistress, and the goddess who might command and find him ready and alert for service.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“I loved her with that love a man may exercise but once.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“But—do you love Paulette?”

He leaped up and glared at her.

“You? Love you? Why, you are just a little animal! a pretty little golden animal, for sure, but a form of flesh—no more. May one worship a god merely because he is big, or cherish a land which has no virtue save its breadth, or love a woman whose whole realm is her flesh? Ah, Paulette! you have no soul at all! Elizabeth had a white winged soul. I love you—yes—with what you have to be loved—the body. But Elizabeth—I loved Elizabeth with my soul.”

Paulette was puzzled.

“What is this soul?” she asked. “And how may I get one if I have not one already? And where is this soul of yours that I have never seen it or heard it at all? And if they cannot be seen, or heard, or touched, how do you know she had this soul?”

“Hush!” he cried furiously. “Hush! or I box your mouth and have you whipped on the cross. You speak of things beyond you. What can you know of love that lies without your fleshly juggling?”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 5 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

There was respect in his eyes, surely, but no fear, no jealousy, and no suspicion.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“Heard of her!” he said softly. “Sir, I have dreamed of her and called to her in my sleep. Who has not? Who in all this quarter of the world has not heard of her, and yet who knows any single thing about her? It is a strange thing, the magic of this woman’s name. La Santa Rosa! La Santa Rosa! It conjures up desire in the heart of every man—not active, possible desire, but the ‘if I were handsome, if I were a prince’ kind of desire. The young men make wild plans; some to go disguised to Panama, others to blow it up with quantities of powder. They daydream of carrying the Red Saint off with them. Sir, I have heard a seaman all rotten with disease whispering to himself in the night, ‘If this thing were not on me, I would go adventuring for La Santa Rosa.’”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

And again they sat silently, drinking the rich wine.

“But there is much suffering bound up in women,” Henry Morgan began, as though he had just finished speaking. “They seem to carry pain about with them in a leaking package. You have loved often, they say, Coeur de Gris. Have you not felt the pain they carry?”

“No, sir, I do not think I have. Surely I have been assailed by regrets and little sorrows—everyone has; but mostly I have found only pleasure among women.”

“Ah, you are lucky,” the captain said. “You are filled with luck not to have known the pain. My own life was poisoned by love. This life I lead was forced on me by lost love.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“Here is an old man, sir. We are sure he has riches, but he has hidden them away and we can never find any.”

“Then put his feet in the fire!—why, he is a brazen fool! Break his arms!— He will not tell? Put the whip-cord about his temples!— Oh, kill him! kill him and stop his screaming— Perhaps he had no money—”

(There is a woman in Panama—)

“Have you scratched out every grain of gold? Place the city at ransom! We must have riches after pain.”

A fleet of Spanish ships came sailing to the rescue.

“A Spanish squadron coming? We will fight them! No, no; we shall run from them if we can get away. Our hulls lag in the water with their weight of gold. Kill the prisoners!”

(—she is lovely as the sun.)
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 6 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

“Now the men are straining to get back that they may spend their money. If it were possible they would be pushing the ships to hurry them. What will you do with your money, Coeur de Gris?”

“Why, I shall send half to my mother. The remaining sum I shall divide in two. Part I shall put away, and on the other I expect to be drunk for a few days, or perhaps a week. It is good to be drunk after fighting.”

“Drunkenness has never been a pleasure to me,” the captain said. “It makes me very sad. But I have a new venture turning in my brain. Coeur de Gris, what is the richest city of the western world? What place has been immune from the slightest gesture of the Brotherhood? Where might we all make millions?”

“But, sir, you do not think— Surely you cannot consider it possible to take—”

“I will take Panama—even the Cup of Gold.”

“How may you do this thing? The city is strongly guarded with walls and troops, and the way across the isthmus is nigh impossible but for the burro trail. How will you do this thing?”

“I must take Panama. I must capture the Cup of Gold.” The captain’s jaw set fiercely.

Now Coeur de Gris was smiling quietly.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“I must have an army this time, my friend, and even then we may all die. Perhaps that is the chief joy of life—to risk it.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Young Coeur de Gris stood musing by the mast.

“Our captain, our cold captain, has been bitten by this great, nebulous rumoring. How strange this pattern is! It is as though the Red Saint had been stolen from my arms. My dream is violated. I wonder, when they know, if every man will carry this feeling of a bitter loss—will hate the captain for stealing his desire.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 7 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

It is amazing how this road-mender has his whole life curled like a kitten around four days in London.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“Why, to speak truthfully, Robert, I have taken it in my mind several times—but always there were too many things to think about. I could not take the time to die. If I did, I might not be able to think ever again.

“For up here, Robert, that furtive hope the valley men call faith becomes a questionable thing. Oh, without doubt, if there were a great many about me, and they all intoning endlessly the chant, ‘There is a wise, kind God; surely we shall go on living after death,’ then I might be preparing for the coming life. But here, alone, halfway up the sky, I am afraid that death would interrupt my musing. The mountains are a kind of poultice for a man’s abstract pain. Among them he laughs—oh, far more often than he cries.”

“You know,” said Robert, “my mother, the old Gwenliana, made a last, curious prophecy before she died. ‘This night the world ends,’ she said, ‘and there will be no more earth to walk upon.’”

“Robert, I think she spoke truth. I think her dying words were truth, whatever may have been her other auguries. This gnawing thought comes visiting, sometimes, and because of it I am afraid to die—horribly afraid. If by my living I give life to you, and fresh existence to the fields and trees and all the long green world, it would be an unutterable deed to wipe them all out like a chalk drawing. I must not—yet awhile.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“News of him comes out of the south on a light, inaccurate wind. Rumor has wings like bats. It is said that he rules a wild race of pirates; that he has captured towns and pillaged cities. The English are elated, and call him a hero and a patriotic man—and so do I, sometimes. But I fear if I were a Spaniard, he would be only a successful robber.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“So,” Merlin mused, “he has come to be the great man he thought he wanted to be. If this is true, then he is not a man. He is still a little boy and wants the moon. I suppose he is rather unhappy about it. Those who say children are happy, forget their childhood. I wonder how long he can stave off manhood.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 8 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

He could not clearly remember his desire. But even though this desire should desert him utterly, he must go on. One failure, one moment of indecision, would scatter his successes like pigeons.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“This woman is the harbor of all my questing. I do not think of her as a female thing with arms and breasts, but as a moment of peace after turmoil, a perfume after rancid filth.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

It was monstrous to think that these men could feel as he did. Such a comparison made him, somehow, unworthy.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“This is not all. There are bulls to be loosed against you—against you cattle hunters.” A laugh followed his last words. Many of these men had lived in the jungle and had made their livelihood with hunting wild cattle.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 9 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

“And I have heard your words so often and so often in Paris and Cordova. I am tired of these words that never change. Is there some book with which aspiring lovers instruct themselves? The Spanish men say the same things, but their gestures are more practiced, and so a little more convincing. You have much to learn.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“When I heard of you and your blustering up and down the ocean, I thought of you, somehow, as the one realist on an earth of vacillation. I dreamed that you would come to me one day, armed with a transcendent, silent lust, and force my body with brutality. I craved a wordless, reasonless brutality....

“I wanted blind force—blind, unreasoning force—and love not for my soul or for some imagined beauty of my mind, but for the white fetish of my body. I do not want softness. I am soft. My husband uses scented lotions on his hands before he touches me, and his fingers are like thick, damp snails. I want the crush of hard muscles, the delicious pain of little hurts.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“I love you,” he said miserably.

“You speak as though it were some new, tremendous thing. Many men have loved me; hundreds have said they did.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Henry released her and stepped away, wiping his bloody face with the back of his hand. Ysobel laughed at him. A man may beat—may subject to every violation—a woman who cries and runs away, but he is helpless before one who stands her ground and only laughs.
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“It is a legend that dying men think of their deeds done. No— No— I think of what I have not done—of what I might have done in the years that are dying with me. I think of the lips of women I have never seen—of the wine that is sleeping in a grape seed—of the quick, warm caress of my mother in Goaves. But mostly I think that I shall never walk about again—never, never stroll in the sunshine nor smell the rich essences the full moon conjures up out of the earth— Sir, why did you do it?”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 10 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

“I was told that you killed your friend. Is it that which burdens you?”

“I killed him.”

“And do you mourn for him?”

“Perhaps. I do not know. I think I mourn for some other thing which is dead. He might have been a vital half of me, which, dying, leaves me half a man. Today I have been like a bound slave on a white slab of marble with the gathered vivisectors about me. I was supposed to be a healthy slave, but the scalpels found me sick with a disease called mediocrity.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“I think I am sorry because of your lost light; because the brave, brutal child in you is dead—the boastful child who mocked and thought his mockery shook the throne of God; the confident child who graciously permitted the world to accompany him through space. This child is dead, and I am sorry.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“I find I am tired of all this bloodshed and struggle for things that will not lie still, for articles that will not retain their value in my hands. It is horrible,” he cried. “I do not want anything any more. I have no lusts, and my desires are dry and rattling. I have only a vague wish for peace and the time to ponder imponderable matters.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“But I suppose your sins are great. All men who break the bars of mediocrity commit frightful sins.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

Quotations from *Cup of Gold*, 11 of 11
John Steinbeck
1902-1968 American

Captain Morgan went back to the treasure. He sat on the floor and took the coins into his hands. “The most human of all traits is inconsistency,” he thought. “It is a shock to learn this thing, almost as great a shock to a man as the realization of his humanity.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“But if it is wisdom, then wisdom is experience beating about in an orderly brain, kicking over the files.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“I ordered him to come in here tonight,” said the King. “These sailors and pirates sometimes have a tale or two worth repeating. You’ll be disappointed in him. He is—lumpish, I think is the word. You get the impression that a great mass is planted before you; and he moves as though he pushed his own invisible cage ahead of him.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“There are things which so sear the soul that the pain of it follows through life.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

The King was smiling through his wine.

“How is it, John, that such a great soldier can be such a great fool?”

Said John Evelyn, “How could it be otherwise? If great men were not fools, the world would have been destroyed long ago. How could it be otherwise? Folly and distorted vision are the foundations of greatness.”

“You mean that my vision is distorted?”

“No, I do not mean that.”

“Then you imply—”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“Of course he is a fool, Sire, else he would be turning soil in Wales or burrowing in the mines. He wanted something, and he was idiot enough to think he could get it. Because of his idiocy he did get it—part of it.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“Civilization will split up a character, and he who refuses to split goes under.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

He wanted to say, “I won’t want to get to heaven once I am dead. I won’t want them to disturb me.”
—John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold