I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. … Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. … There is no other story. A [person], after [brushing] off the dust and chips of […] life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

—John Steinbeck, East of Eden