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And, After Boasting This Way Of My Tolerance, I Come To The Admission That It Has A Limit. Conduct May Be Founded On The Hard Rock Or The Wet Marshes, But After A Certain Point I Don’t Care What It’s Founded On. When I Came Back From The East Last Autumn I Felt That I Wanted The World To Be In Uniform And At A Sort Of Moral Attention Forever; I Wanted No More Riotous Excursions With Privileged Glimpses Into The Human Heart. Only Gatsby, The Man Who Gives His Name To This Book, Was Exempt From My Reaction—gatsby, Who Represented Everything For Which I Have An Unaffected Scorn.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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And, After Boasting This

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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And, After Boasting This Way Of My Tolerance, I Come To The Admission That It Has A Limit. Conduct May Be Founded On The Hard Rock Or The Wet Marshes, But After A Certain Point I Don’t Care What It’s Founded On. When I Came Back From The East Last Autumn I Felt That I Wanted The World To Be In Uniform And At A Sort Of Moral Attention Forever; I Wanted No More Riotous Excursions With Privileged Glimpses Into The Human Heart. Only Gatsby, The Man Who Gives His Name To This Book, Was Exempt From My Reaction—gatsby, Who Represented Everything For Which I Have An Unaffected Scorn.

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And Yale Is November, Crisp And Energetic.

Those Days Are Over. I Have To Be Won All Over Again Every Time You See Me.

How Different It All Was From What You'd Planned.

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That Is Part Of The Beauty Of All Literature. You Discover That Your Longings Are Universal Longings, That You're Not Lonely And Isolated From Anyone. You Belong.

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Human Sympathy Has Its Limits, And We Were Contented To Let All Their Tragic Arguments Fade With The City Lights Behind.

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Prose Talent Depends On Having Something To Say And An Interesting, Highly Developed Way Of Saying It.

I Never Blame Failure - There Are Too Many Complicated Situations In Life - But I Am Absolutely Merciless Toward Lack Of Effort.

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It Is Invariably Saddening To Look Through New Eyes At Things Upon Which You Have Expended Your Own Powers Of Adjustment.

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Your First Most Typical Figure In Any New Place Turns Out To Be A Bluff Or A Local Nuisance.

When I See A Beautiful Shell Like That I Can't Help Feeling A Regret About What's Inside It.

Ernest [hemmingway] Was Always Ready To Lend A Helping Hand To The One On The Rung Above Him.

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Then There Came A Faraway, Booming Voice Like A Low, Clear Bell. It Came From The Center Of The Bowl And Down The Great Sides To The Ground And Then Bounced Toward Her Eagerly. 'you See I Am Fate,' It Shouted, 'and Stronger Than Your Puny Plans; And I Am How-things-turn-out And I Am Different From Your Little Dreams, And I Am The Flight Of Time And The End Of Beauty And Unfulfilled Desire; All The Accidents And Imperceptions And The Little Minutes That Shape The Crucial Hours Are Mine. I Am The Exception That Proves No Rules, The Limits Of Your Control, The Condiment In The Dish Of Life.

He Looked At Her And For A Moment She Lived In The Bright Blue Worlds Of His Eyes, Eagerly And Confidently.

Very Well Then, Better A Sane Crook Than A Mad Puritan.

To A Profound Pessimist About Life, Being In Danger Is Not Depressing.

I Avoided Writers Very Carefully Because They Can Perpetuate Trouble As No One Else Can.

First You Take A Drink, Then The Drink Takes A Drink, Then The Drink Takes You.

Too Much Of Anything Is Bad, But Too Much Champagne Is Just Right.

Young People Do Not Perceive At Once That The Giver Of Wounds Is The Enemy And The Quoted Tattle Merely The Arrow.

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You Seem To Take Things So Personally, Hating People And Worshipping Them--always Thinking People Are So Important--especially Yourselves. You Just Ask To Be Kicked Around. I Like People And I Like Them To Like Me, But I Wear My Heart Where God Put It--on The Inside.

I Have Asked A Lot Of My Emotions-one Hundred And Twenty Stories. The Price Was High, Right Up With Kipling, Because There Was One Little Drop Of Something, Not Blood, Not A Tear, Not My Seed, But Me More Intimately Than These, In Every Story, It Was The Extra I Had. Now It Has Gone And I Am Just Like You Now.

I Want To Just Be Lazy And I Want Some Of The People Around Me To Be Doing Things, Because That Makes Me Feel Comfortable And Safe - And I Want Some Of Them To Be Doing Nothing At All, Because They Can Be Graceful And Companionable For Me.

For Awhile After You Quit Keats All Other Poetry Seems To Be Only Whistling Or Humming.

For Years Afterwards When Amory Thought Of Eleanor He Seemed Still To Hear The Wind Sobbing Around Him And Sending Little Chills Into The Places Beside His Heart. The Night When They Rode Up The Slope And Watched The Cold Moon Float Through The Clouds, He Lost A Further Part Of Him That Nothing Could Restore; And When He Lost It He Lost Also The Power Of Regretting It.

All I Think Of Ever Is That I Love You.

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Action Is Character.

She Was Incurably Dishonest.

We Haven’t Met For Many Years, Said Daisy, Her Voice As Matter-of-fact As It Could Ever Be. "five Years Next November." The Automatic Quality Set Us All Back At Least Another Minute.

Many Nights He Lay There Dreaming Awake Of Secret Cafés In Mont Marte, Where Ivory Women Delved In Romantic Mysteries With Diplomats And Soldiers Of Fortune, While Orchestras Played Hungarian Waltzes And The Air Was Thick And Exotic With Intrigue And Moonlight And Adventure.

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Reserving Judgements Is A Matter Of Infinite Hope.

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No Amount Of Fire Or Freshness Can Challenge What A Man Will Store Up In His Ghostly Heart.

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When The Lightning Strikes One Of Us, It Strikes Both

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The Words Seemed To Bite Physically Into Gatsby.

There Are All Kinds Of Love In This World But Never The Same Love Twice.

Rosemary Felt That This Swim Would Become The Typical One Of Her Life, The One That Would Always Pop Up In Her Memory At The Mention Of Swimming.

Very Strong Personalities Must Confine Themselves In Mutual Conversation To Very Gentle Subjects.

It Was A Grey Day, That Least Fleshly Of All Weathers; A Day Of Dreams And Far Hopes And Clear Visions. It Was A Day Easily Associated With Those Abstract Truths And Purities That Dissolve In The Sunshine Or Fade Out In Mocking Laughter By The Light Of The Moon. The Trees And Clouds Were Carved In Classical Severity; The Sounds Of The Countryside Had Harmonized To A Monotone, Metallic As A Trumpet, Breathless As The Grecian Urn.

The Bar Is In Full Swing, And Floating Rounds Of Cocktails Permeate The Garden Outside, Until The Air Is Alivewith Chatter And Laughter, And Casual Innuendo And Introductions Forgotten On The Spot, And Enthusiastic Meetings Between Women Who Never Knew Each Other’s Names.

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He Snatched Out His Hand Desperately As If To Snatch Only A Wisp Of Air, To Save A Fragment Of The Spot That She Had Made Lovely For Him. But It Was All Going By Too Fast Now For His Burred Eyes And He Knew That He Had Lost That Part Of It, The Freshest And The Best, Forever.

Englishmen Must Have An Island.

She Admired Him; She Was Used To Clutching Her Hands Together In His Wake And Heaving Audible Sighs.

Do You Ever Wait For The Longest Day Of The Year And Then Miss It? I Always Wait For The Longest Day Of The Year And Then Miss It!

How I Feel Is That If I Wanted Anything I'd Take It. That's What I've Always Thought All My Life. But It Happens That I Want You, And So I Just Haven't Room For Any Other Desires.

She Was Feeling The Pressure Of The World Outside And She Wanted To See Him And Feel His Presence Beside Her And Be Reassured That She Was Doing The Right Thing After All.

The Years Between Thirty-five And Sixty-five Revolve Before The Passive Mind As One Unexplained, Confusing Merry-go-round. True, They Are A Merry-go-round Of Ill-gaited And Wind-broken Horses, Painted First In Pastel Colors, Then In Dull Grays And Browns, But Perplexing And Intolerably Dizzy The Thing Is, As Never Were The Merry-go-rounds Of Childhood Or Adolescence; As Never, Surely, Were The Certain-coursed, Dynamic Roller-coasters Of Youth. For Most Men And Women These Thirty Years Are Taken Up With A Gradual Withdrawal From Life.

The Strongest Guard Is Placed At The Gateway To Nothing. Maybe Because The Condition Of Emptiness Is Too Shameful To Be Divulged.

Tender Is The Night

Given A Decent Start Any Girl Can Beat A Man Nowadays.

So He Waited, Listening For A Moment Longer To The Tuning-fork That Had Been Struck Upon A Star.

The Cracked Plate Has To Be Retained In The Pantry, Has To Be Kept In Service As A Household Necessity. It Can Never Be Warmed On The Stove Nor Shuffled With The Other Plates In The Dishpan; It Will Not Be Brought Out For Company But It Will Do To Hold Crackers Late At Night Or To Go Into The Ice-box With The Left Overs.

I Don't Want To Repeat My Innocence. I Want The Pleasure Of Losing It Again.

Sometimes I Wish I'd Been An Englishman; American Life Is So Damned Dumb And Stupid And Healthy

This Unlikely Story Begins On A Sea That Was A Blue Dream, As Colorful As Blue-silk Stockings, And Beneath A Sky As Blue As The Irises Of Children's Eyes.

She’s Got An Indiscreet Voice,” I Remarked. “it’s Full Of-“ I Hesitated. “her Voice Is Full Of Money,” He Said Suddenly. That Was It. I’d Never Understood Before. It Was Full Of Money-that Was The Inexhaustible Charm That Rose And Fell In It, The Jingle Of It, The Cymbals’ Song Of It.

I Don't Think He Was Ever Happy Unless Someone Was In Love With Him, Responding To Him Like Filings To A Magnet, Helping Him To Explain Himself, Promising Him Something. What It Was I Do Not Know. Perhaps They Promised That There Would Always Be Women In The World Who Would Spend Their Brightest, Freshest, Rarest Hours To Nurse And Protect That Superiority He Cherished In His Heart.

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I Couldn't Forgive Him Or Like Him, But I Saw That What He Had Done Was, To Him, Entirely Justified.

You Really Ought To Read More Books - You Know, Those Things That Look Like Blocks But Come Apart On One Side.

I Want To Tell You About Your Heart— You've Probably Been Neglecting Your Heart—and You Don’t Know.

America Is A Willingness Of The Heart.

I’ve Heard It Said That Daisy’s Murmur Was Only To Make People Lean Toward Her; An Irrelevant Criticism That Made It No Less Charming.

I Care Not Who Hoes The Lettuce Of My Country If I Can Eat The Salad!

Wine Gave A Sort Of Gallantry To Their Own Failure.

Your Life On Earth Will Be, As Always, The Interval Between Two Significant Glances In A Mundane Mirror.

The Transition From Libertine To Prig Was So Complete.

Looking Back Over A Decade One Sees The Ideal Of A University Become A Myth, A Vision, A Meadow Lark Among The Smoke Stacks. Yet Perhaps It Is There At Princeton, Only More Elusive Than Under The Skies Of The Prussian Rhineland Or Oxfordshire; Or Perhaps Some Men Come Upon It Suddenly And Possess It, While Others Wander Forever Outside. Even These Seek In Vain Through Middle Age For Any Corner Of The Republic That Preserves So Much Of What Is Fair, Gracious, Charming And Honorable In American Life.

He Had Been Full Of The Idea So Long, Dreamed It Right Through To The End, Waited With His Teeth Set, So To Speak, At An Inconceivable Pitch Of Intensity. Now, In The Reaction, He Was Running Down Like An Overwound Clock.

Only Remember West Of The Mississippi It's A Little More Look, See, Act. A Little Less Rationalize, Comment, Talk.

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He Was So Terrible That He Was No Longer Terrible, Only Dehumanized.

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I Was A Little Shocked At The Elaborateness Of The Lie.

And Will I Like Being Called A Jazz-baby? You Will Love It.

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There's A Right Way Of Doing Things And A Wrong Way. If You've Made Up Your Mind To Be Different From Everybody Else, I Don't Suppose I Can Stop You, But I Really Don't Think It's Very Considerate.

A Big Man Has No Time Really To Do Anything But Just Sit And Be Big.

A Woman Should Be Able To Kiss A Man Beautifully And Romantically Without Any Desire To Be Either His Wife Or His Mistress.

You Are Mysterious, I Love You. You’re Beautiful, Intelligent, And Virtuous, And That’s The Rarest Known Combination.

It Takes A Genius To Whine Appealingly.

I Don’t Want Just Words. If That’s All You Have For Me, You’d Better Go

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All Good Writing Is Swimming Under Water And Holding Your Breath.

They Were Stars On This Stage, Each Playing To An Audience Of Two.

She Smiled At Him, Making Sure That The Smile Gathered Up Everything Inside Her And Directed It Toward Him, Making Him A Profound Promise Of Herself For So Little, For The Beat Of A Response, The Assurance Of A Complimentary Vibration In Him.

For A Transitory Enchanted Moment Man Must Have Held His Breath In The Presence Of This Continent, Compelled Into An Aesthetic Contemplation He Neither Understood Nor Desired, Face To Face For The Last Time In History With Something Commensurate To His Capacity For Wonder.

Through All He Said, Even Through His Appalling Sentimentality, I Was Reminded Of Something-an Elusive Rhythm, A Fragment Of Lost Words, That I Heard Somewhere A Long Time Ago. For A Moment A Phrase Tried To Take Shape In My Mouth And My Lips Parted Like A Dumb Man's, As Though There Was More Struggling Upon Them Than A Wisp Of Startled Air. But They Made No Sound And What I Had Almost Remembered Was Uncommunicable Forever.

Better Let It All Alone In The Depths Of Her Heart And The Depths Of The Sea.

It's Just Because I Love The Past That I Want This House To Look Back On Its Glamourous Moment Of Youth And Beauty, And I Want Its Stairs To Creak As If To The Footsteps Of Women With Hoop Skirts And Men In Boots And Spurs. But They've Made It Into A Blondined, Rouged-up Old Woman Of Sixty.

I Carry The Place Around The World In My Heart But Sometimes I Try To Shake It Off In My Dreams

Americans, While Occasionally Willing To Be Serfs, Have Always Been Obstinate About Being Peasantry.

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An Artist Is Someone Who Can Hold Two Opposing Viewpoints And Still Remain Fully Functional.

In My Younger And More Vulnerable Years My Father Gave Me Some Advice That I've Been Turning Over In My Mind Ever Since.

I Like France, Where Everybody Thinks He's Napoleon--down Here Everybody Thinks He's Christ.

Though The Jazz Age Continued It Became Less And Less An Affair Of Youth. The Sequel Was Like A Children's Party Taken Over By The Elders.

It Appears That Every Man's Insomnia Is As Different From His Neighbours As Are Their Daytime Hopes And Aspirations.

The Purpose Of A Work Of Fiction Is To Appeal To The Lingering After-effects In The Reader's Mind As Differing From, Say, The Purpose Of Oratory Or Philosophy Which Respectively Leave People In A Fighting Or Thoughtful Mood.

Sometimes I Think That Idlers Seem To Be A Special Class For Whom Nothing Can Be Planned, Plead As One Will With Them - Their Only Contribution To The Human Family Is To Warm A Seat At The Common Table.

All The Time Something Within Her Was Crying For A Decision. She Wanted Her Life Shaped Now, Immediately — And The Decision Must Be Made By Some Force — Of Love, Of Money, Of Unquestionable Practicality — That Was Close At Hand

Find The Key Emotion; This May Be All You Need Know To Find Your Short Story.

A Sudden Gust Of Rain Blew Over Them And Then Another - As If Small Liquid Clouds Were Bouncing Along The Land. Lightning Entered The Sea Far Off And The Air Blew Full Of Crackling Thunder. The Table Cloths Blew Around The Pillars. They Blew And Blew And Blew. The Flags Twisted Around The Red Chairs Like Live Things, The Banners Were Ragged, The Corners Of The Table Tore Off Through The Burbling Billowing Ends Of The Cloths.

I Am A Woman And My Business Is To Hold Things Together. My Business Is To Tear Them Apart.

I Wanted No More Riotous Excursions With Privileged Glimpses Into The Human Heart.

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You Have To Develop A Conscience And If On Top Of That You Have Talent So Much The Better. But If You Have Talent Without Conscience, You Are Just One Of Many Thousand Journalists.

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The Afternoon Had Made Them Tranquil For A While, As If To Give Them A Deep Memory For The Long Parting The Next Day Promised.

We Can't Possibly Have A Summer Love. So Many People Have Tried That The Name's Become Proverbial. Summer Is Only The Unfulfilled Promise Of Spring, A Charlatan In Place Of The Warm Balmy Nights I Dream Of In April. It's A Sad Season Of Life Without Growth...it Has No Day.

Once One Is Caught Up Into The Material World Not One Person In Ten Thousand Finds The Time To Form Literary Taste, To Examine The Validity Of Philosophic Concepts For Himself, Or To Form What, For Lack Of A Better Phrase, I Might Call The Wise And Tragic Sense Of Life.

Well, I Can't Describe Her Exactly-except To Say That She Was Beautiful. She Was-tremendously Alive.

One Hurries Through, Even Though There's Time; The Past, The Continent, Is Behind; The Future Is The Glowing Mouth In The Side Of The Ship; The Dim, Turbulent Alley Is Too Confusedly The Present.

It Is Difficult For Young People To Live Things Down. We Will Tolerate Vice, Grand Larceny And The Quieter Forms Of Murder In Our Contemporaries... But Our Children's Friends Must Show A Blank Service Record.

The Ability To Hold Two Competing Thoughts In One's Mind And Still Be Able To Function Is The Mark Of A Superior Mind

I Have Lived Hard And Ruined The Essential Innocence [sic] In Myself That Could Make It That Possible [sic], And The Fact That I Have Abused Liquor Is Something To Be Paid For With Suffering And Death Perhaps But Not Renunciation.

Suffering And Death

Baltimore Is Warm But Pleasant... I Belong Here, Where Everything Is Civilized And Gay And Rotted And Polite.

Angry, And Half In Love With Her, And Tremendously Sorry, I Turned Away.

Great Gatsby Love

I Hope Something Happens. I'm Restless As The Devil And Have A Horror Of Getting Fat Or Falling In Love And Growing Domestic.

Falling In Love

I Want To Do Everything In The World With You.

Debut: The First Time A Young Girl Is Seen Drunk In Public.

Art Isn't Meaningless... It Is In Itself. It Isn't In That It Tries To Make Life Less So.

His Was A Great Sin Who First Invented Consciousness. Let Us Lose It For A Few Hours.

As We Passed Over The Dark Bridge Her Wan Face Fell Lazily Against My Coat's Shoulder And The Formidable Stroke Of Thirty Died Away With The Reassuring Pressure Of Her Hand.

What Was It Up There In The Song That Seemed To Be Calling Her Back Inside? What Would Happen Now In The Dim, Incalculable Hours?

Beautiful Things Grow To A Certain Height And Then They Fail And Fade Off, Breathing Out Memories As They Decay. And Just As Any Period Decays In Our Minds, The Things Of That Period Should Decay Too, And In That Way They're Preserved For A While In The Few Hearts Like Mine That React To Them. Trying To Preserve A Century By Keeping Its Relics Up To Date Is Like Keeping A Dying Man Alive By Stimulants.

I Think They're Very Attractive,' Abe Agreed. 'i Just Don't Think They're Attractive, That's All.

He Knew That When He Kissed This Girl, And Forever Wed His Unutterable Visions To Her Perishable Breath, His Mind Would Never Romp Again Like The Mind Of God.

The Men--the Undergraduates Of Yale And Princeton Are Cleaner, Healthier, Better-looking, Better Dressed, Wealthier And More Attractive Than Any Undergraduate Body In The Country.

Men Don’t Often Know Those Times When A Girl Could Be Had For Nothing.

A Love Affair Is Like A Short Story--it Has A Beginning, A Middle, And An End. The Beginning Was Easy, The Middle Might Drag, Invaded By Commonplace, But The End, Instead Of Being Decisive And Well Knit With That Element Of Revelatory Surprise As A Well-written Story Should Be, It Usually Dissipated In A Succession Of Messy And Humiliating Anticlimaxes.

In Short, You Have Only Your Emotions To Sell. This Is The Experience Of All Writers.

Often I Think Writing Is A Sheer Paring Away Of Oneself Leaving Always Something Thinner, Barer, More Meagre.

It Was As If For The Remainder Of His Life He Was Condemned To Carry With Him The Egos Of Certain People, Early Met And Early Loved, And To Be Only As Complete As They Were Complete Themselves. There Was Some Element Of Loneliness Involved--so Easy To Be Loved--so Hard To Love.

The History Of My Life Is The History Of The Struggle Between An Overwhelming Urge To Write And A Combination Of Circumstances Bent On Keeping Me From It.

Overwhelming Urge

Family Quarrels Are Bitter Things. They Don't Go According To Any Rules. They're Not Like Aches Or Wounds, They're More Like Splits In The Skin That Won't Heal Because There's Not Enough Material.

I Began To Like New York, The Racy, Adventurous Feel Of It At Night, And The Satisfaction That The Constant Flicker Of Men And Women And Machines Gives To The Restless Eye.

It Was Testimony To The Romantic Speculation He Inspired That There Were Whispers About Him From Those Who Had Found Little That It Was Necessary To Whisper About In This World.

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Arthur Rubinstein

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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