“This week has been a hard one.
I have put the forces of evil against a potential good.
Yesterday I wrote the outward thing of what happened.
Today I have to show what came of it. This is quite
different from the modern hard-boiled school.
I think I must set it down. And I will.
The spots of gold on this page
are the splatterings
from beautiful
thoughts.”
– John Steinbeck,
Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters,
his note to Pascal Covici on Friday, Sept. 7, 1951