Quotes from The Good Earth

“Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old...

- Wang Lung”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“And roots, if they are to bear fruits, must be kept well in the soil of the land.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“It is the end of a family- when they begin to sell their land. Out of the land we came and into we must go - and if you will hold your land you can live- no one can rob you of land.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Wang Lung sat smoking, thinking of the silver as it had lain upon the table. It had come out of the earth, this silver, out of the earth that he ploughed and turned and spent himself upon. He took his life from the earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung food from it and from the food, silver. Each time before this that he had taken the silver out to give to anyone, it had been like taking a piece of his life and giving it to someone carelessly. But not for the first time, such giving was not pain. He saw, not the silver in the alien hand of a merchant in the town; he saw the silver transmuted into something worth even more than life itself - clothes upon the body of his son.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Out of the woman's great brown breast the milk gushed forth for the child, milk as white as snow, and when the child suckled at the one breast it flowed like a fountain from the other, ans she let it flow. There was more than enough for the child, greedy though he was, life enough for many children, and she let it flow out carelessly, conscious of her abundance. There was always more. Sometimes she lifted her breast and let it flow out upon the ground to save her clothing, and it sank into the earth and made a soft, dark, rich spot in the field. The child fat and good-natured and ate of the inexhaustible life his mother gave him.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“He saw on the paper a picture of a man, white-skinned, who hung upon a crosspiece of wood. The man was without clothes except for a bit about his loins, and to all appearences he was dead, since his head drooped upon his shoulder and his eyes were closed above his bearded lips. Wang Lung looked at the pictured man in horror and with increasing interest.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Hunger makes thief of any man.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“It was Wang Lung's marriage day.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Well I know I am ugly and cannot be loved—”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Now it has been said from ancient times that all women who weep may be divided into three sorts. There are those who lift up their voices and their tears flow and this may be called crying; there are those who utter loud lamentations but whose tears do not flow and this may be called howling; there are those whose tears flow but who utter no sound and this may be called weeping. Of all those women who followed Wang Lung in his coffin, his wives and his sons’ wives and his maid servants and his slaves and his hired mourners, there was only one who wept and it was Pear Blossom.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Then Wang Lung turned to the woman and looked at her for the first time. She had a square, honest face, a short, broad nose with large black nostrils, and her mouth was wide as a gash in her face. Her eyes were small and of a dull black in color, and were filled with some sadness that was not clearly expressed. It was a face that seemed habitually silent and unspeaking, as though it could not speak if it would. She bore patiently Wang Lung’s look, without embarrassment or response, simply waiting until he had seen her. He saw that it was true there was not beauty of any kind in her face—a brown, common, patient face. But there were no pock-marks on her dark skin, nor was her lip split. In her ears he saw his rings hanging, the gold-washed rings he had bought, and on her hands were the rings he had given her. He turned away with secret exultation. Well, he had his woman!”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half-fed!" (Buck, 65)”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“And out of his heaviness there stood out strangely but one clear thought and it was a pain to him, and it was this, that he wished he had not taken the two pearls from O-lan that day when she was washing his clothes at the pool, and he would never bear to see Lotus put them in her ears again.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Well, and they must all starve if the plants starve." 'It was true that all their lives depended upon the earth' (Buck, 71).”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“But hers was a strange heart, sad in its very nature, and she could never weep and ease it as other women do, for her tears never brought her comfort.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“And from that time on the boys were no longer called Elder and Younger, but they were given school names by the old teacher, and this old man, after inquiring into the occupation of their father, erected two names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“He lived in the rich city as alien as a rat in a rich man's house that is fed on scraps thrown away, and hides here and there and is never a part of the real life of the house.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“When I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms. I shall have a red coat on him and red-flowered trousers and on his head a hat with a small gilded Buddha sewn on the front and on his feet tiger-faced shoes. And I will wear new shoes and a new coat of black sateen and I will go into the kitchen where I spent my days and I will go into the great hall where the Old One sits with her opium, and I will show myself and my son to all of them.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“and his voice came from him in a whisper,”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“The first peaches of spring - the first peaches! Buy, eat, purge your bowels of the poisons of winter!”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“And listening to all the things they would do if they had these things, Wang Lung heard only of how much they would eat and sleep, and of what dainties they would eat that they had never tasted,and how they would gamble in this great tea shop and in that, and what pretty women they would buy for their lust, and above all, how none would ever work again, even as they rich man behind the wall never worked.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“To those at the great house it means nothing, this handful of earth, but to me it means how much!" (Buck, 57)”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“We must have this rule, for there are those whose hearts are so hard that they will come and buy this rice that is given for the poor--for a penny will not feed any man like this--and they will carry the rice home to feed to their pigs for slop. And the rice is for men and not for pigs" (Buck, 105).”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Spring passed and summer passed into harvest and in the hot autumn sun before winter comes Wang Lung sat where his father had sat against the wall. And he thought no more about anything now except his food and his drink and his land. But of his land he thought no more what harvest it would bring or what seed would be planted or of anything except of the land itself, and he stooped sometimes and gathered some of the earth up in his hand and he sat thus and held it in his hand, and it seemed full of life between his fingers. And he was content, holding it thus, and he thought of it fitfully and of his good coffin that was there; and the kind earth waited without haste until he came to it.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“contempt for himself that a small piece of land should seem so important. Why, when he had poured out his silver proudly before the agent the man had scraped it up carelessly in his hands and said, “Here is enough for a few days of opium for the old lady, at any rate.” And the wide difference that still lay between him and the great house seemed suddenly impassable as the moat full of”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“Well, and you may have lived in the courts of the Old Lord, and you were accounted beautiful, but I have been a man's wife and I have borne him sons, and you are still a slave.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“And to him war was a thing like earth and sky and water and why it was no one knew but only that it was.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

“The narrator refers to a character as "an oily scoundrel whose hands were heavy with the money that stuck to them.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from The Good Earth

About the author

Popular quotes

“Sophia, with real nobility of character, then asked Papa to explain something she had read in Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia, which the Vicar, whose only personal extravagance was his purchase of books, had lately added to his library.”
― Georgette Heyer, quote from Arabella

“He turned his dark eyes on the girl whom he had dreamed of so often over the previous months. Beside him, at that very moment of existence, at the heart of torrential downpour, she was exquisitely real, and she, too, seemed content to go on sitting there forever.”
― Anna Godbersen, quote from Splendor

“God, help me. Help me to be wise and full of courage and sound judgment. Harden my heart to the sights that I must see so soon again, grant me only the power to think clearly, boldly, resolutely, no matter how unnerving the peril. Let me not fail them.”
― Anton Myrer, quote from Once An Eagle

“But I know that I am not who I was supposed to be, who I could have been, and I know it's because I was too afraid for too long. It made me think about things I never should have.”
― Nancy Werlin, quote from The Rules of Survival

“Look behind you now.
Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?
... Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower takes to the sky with thousands Afterlights heading toward Memphis.
... Perhaps this is the moment that Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, arrives in the same city in search for Allie, only to find that he has no idea where to look.
... Perhaps this is the very instant that a monster called the McGill arrives there as well, aching to ease his pain by sharing his misery - not only with his new minions, but with anyone he can.
... And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the covergence of the wrong, of the right, and the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep.... For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of doubt, which is which.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Everwild

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.