Background Image

...

Her Fine High Forehead Sloped Gently Up To Where Her Hair, Bordering It Like An Armorial Shield, Burst Into Lovelocks And Waves And Curlicues Of Ash Blonde And Gold. Her Eyes Were Bright, Big, Clear, Wet And Shining, The Colour Of Her Cheeks Was Real, Breaking Close To The Surface From The Strong Young Pump Of Her Heart. Her Body Hovered Delicately On The Last Edge Of Childhood -- She Was Almost Eighteen, Nearly Complete, But The Dew Was Still On Her.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Her Fine High Forehead

F. Scott Fitzgerald

...

Her Fine High Forehead Sloped Gently Up To Where Her Hair, Bordering It Like An Armorial Shield, Burst Into Lovelocks And Waves And Curlicues Of Ash Blonde And Gold. Her Eyes Were Bright, Big, Clear, Wet And Shining, The Colour Of Her Cheeks Was Real, Breaking Close To The Surface From The Strong Young Pump Of Her Heart. Her Body Hovered Delicately On The Last Edge Of Childhood -- She Was Almost Eighteen, Nearly Complete, But The Dew Was Still On Her.

Views: 11

Topic

More From F. Scott Fitzgerald

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

I Hate Dainty Minds,' Answered Marjorie. 'but A Girl Has To Be Dainty In Person. If She Looks Like A Million Dollars She Can Talk About Russia, Ping-pong, Or The League Of Nations And Get Away With It.

Strange Children Should Smile At Each Other And Say, "let's Play.

The Montana Sunset Lay Between The Mountains Like A Giant Bruise From Which Darkened Arteries Spread Across A Poisoned Sky.

All Things Come To Him Who Mates.

From The Ruins, Lonely And Inexplicable As The Sphinx, Rose The Empire State Building.

People Invariably Chose Inimitable People To Imitate.

But He Hated To Be Sober. It Made Him Conscious Of The People Around Him, Of That Air Of Struggle, Of Greedy Ambition, Of Hope More Sordid Than Despair, Of Incessant Passage Up Or Down.

The Early Twenties When We Drank Wood Alcohol And Every Day In Every Way Grew Better And Better, And There Was A First Abortive Shortening Of The Skirts, And Girls All Looked Alike In Sweater Dresses, And People You Didn't Want To Know Said "yes, We Have No Bananas," And It Seemed Only A Question Of A Few Years Before The Older People Would Step Aside And Let The World Be Run By Those Who Saw Things As They Were--and It All Seems Rosy And Romantic To Us Who Were Young Then, Because We Will Never Feel Quite So Intensely About Our Surroundings Any More.

I Am One Of The Few Honest People That I Have Ever Known.

Great Gatsby Important

That Was Always My Experience-a Poor Boy In A Rich Town; A Poor Boy In A Rich Boy's School; A Poor Boy In A Rich Man's Club At Princeton .... However, I Have Never Been Able To Forgive The Rich For Being Rich, And It Has Colored My Entire Life And Works.

She Knew Few Words And Believed In None.

I Want You To Take A Red-hot Bath As Hot As You Can Bear It, And Just Relax Your Nerves. You Can Read In The Tub If You Wish.

The Cleverly Expressed Opposite Of Any Generally Accepted Idea Is Worth A Fortune To Somebody.

The Failure And The Success Both Believe In Their Hearts That They Have Accurately Balanced Points Of View, The Success Because He's Succeeded, And The Failure Because He's Failed. The Successful Man Tells His Son To Profit By His Father's Good Fortune, And The Failure Tells His Son To Profit By His Father's Mistakes.

You Are The Loveliest Thing That I Have Ever Known.

The Intimate Revelations Of Young Men, Or At Least The Terms In Which They Express Them, Are Usually Plagiaristic And Marred By Obvious Suppressions.

People Talk Of The Courage Of Convictions, But In Actual Life A Man's Duty To His Family May Make A Rigid Course Seem A Selfish Indulgence Of His Own Righteousness.

Before You Criticize Others, Remember, They May Not Have Had The Same Opportunities In Life As You Have Had

You Don’t Know What A Trial It Is To Be —like Me. I've Got To Keep My Face Like Steel In The Street To Keep Men From Winking At Me.

Never Confuse A Single Defeat With A Final Defeat.

Great Art Is The Contempt Of A Great Man For Small Art.

Think How You Love Me,' She Whispered. 'i Don't Ask You To Love Me Always Like This, But I Ask You To Remember.' You'll Always Be Like This To Me.' Oh No; But Promise Me You'll Remember.' Her Tears Were Falling. 'i'll Be Different, But Somewhere Lost Inside Me There'll Always Be The Person I Am Tonight.

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

I'm In A Muddle About A Lot Of Things -- I've Just Discovered That I've A Mind, And I'm Starting To Read" "read What?" "everything. I Have To Pick And Choose, Of Course, But Mostly Things That Make Me Think.

In A Few Days I'll Have Lived One Score And Three Days In This Vale Of Tears. On I Plod-always Bored, Often Drunk, Doing No Penance For My Faults-rather Do I Become More Tolerant Of Myself From Day To Day, Hardening My Crystal Heart With Blasphemous Humor And Shunning Only Toothpicks, Pathos, And Poverty As Being The Three Unforgivable Things In Life.

I See Now That This Has Been A Story Of The West, After All--tom And Gatsby, Daisy And Jordan And I, Were All Westerners, And Perhaps We Possessed Some Deficiency In Common Which Made Us Subtly Unadaptable To Eastern Life.

I Won’t Kiss You. It Might Get To Be A Habit And I Can’t Get Rid Of Habits.

He Had Seen Me Several Times, And Had Intended To Call On Me Long Before, But A Peculiar Combination Of Circumstances Had Prevented It.

Writers Aren’t People Exactly. Or, If They’re Any Good, They’re A Whole Lot Of People Trying So Hard To Be One Person.

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.

Modern Life... Changes No Longer Century By Century, But Year By Year, Ten Times Faster Than It Ever Has Before-populations Doubling, Civilizations Unified More Closely With Other Civilizations, Economic Interdependence, Racial Questions, And-we're Dawdling Along. My Idea Is That We've Got To Go Very Much Faster.

She Saw Him The First Day On Board, And Then Her Heart Sank Into Her Shoes As She Realized At Last How Much She Wanted Him. No Matter What His Past Was, No Matter What He Had Done. Which Was Not To Say That She Would Ever Let Him Know, But Only That He Moved Her Chemically More Than Anyone She Had Ever Met, That All Other Men Seemed Pale Beside Him.

I Suppose The Latest Thing Is To Sit Back And Let Mr. Nobody From Nowhere Make Love To Your Wife.

Great Gatsby Love

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.

She Wouldn't Let Go Of The Letter. She Took It Into The Tub With Her And Squeezed It Up In A Wet Ball, And Only Let Me Leave It In The Soap Dish When She Saw That It Was Coming To Pieces Like Snow.

At Eighteen Our Convictions Are Hills From Which We Look; At Forty-five They Are Caves In Which We Hide.

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.

I Felt A Haunting Loneliness Sometimes, And Felt It In Others--young Clerks In The Dusk, Wasting The Most Poignant Moments Of Night And Life.

People Try So Hard To Believe In Leaders Now, Pitifully Hard. But We No Sooner Get A Popular Reformer Or Politician Or Soldier Or Writer Or Philosopher -- A Roosevelt, A Tolstoi, A Wood, A Shaw, A Nietzsche, Than The Cross-currents Of Criticism Wash Him Away. My Lord, No Man Can Stand Prominence These Days. It's The Surest Path To Obscurity. People Get Sick Of Hearing The Same Name Over And Over.

Marriage Was Created Not To Be A Background But To Need One. Mine Is Going To Be Outstanding. It Can't, Shan't Be The Setting - It's Going To Be The Performance, The Lively, Lovely, Glamorous Performance, And The World Shall Be The Scenery.

Of Course All Life Is A Process Of Breaking Down, But The Blows That Do The Dramatic Side Of The Work-- The Big Sudden Blows That Come, Or Seem To Come, From Outside-- The Ones You Remember And Blame Things On And, In Moments Of Weakness, Tell Your Friends About, Don't Show Their Effect All At Once. There Is Another Sort Of Blow That Comes From Within-that You Don't Feel Until It's Too Late To Do Anything About It, Until You Realize With Finality That In Some Regard You Will Never Be As Good A Man Again.

The Bottle Of Whiskey - The Second One - Was Now In Constant Demand By All Present, Excepting Catherine, Who 'felt Just As Good On Nothing At All.

Rosemary Bubbled With Delight At The Trunks. Her Naivete Responded Whole-heartedly To The Expensive Simplicity Of The Divers, Unaware Of Its Complexity And Its Lack Of Innocence, Unaware That It Was All A Selection Of Quality Rather Than Quantity From The Run Of The World's Bazaar; And That The Simplicity Of Behavior Also, The Nursery-like Peace And Good Will, The Emphasis On The Simpler Virtues, Was Part Of A Desperate Bargain With The Gods And Had Been Attained Through Struggles She Could Not Have Guessed At.

How Strange To Have Failed As A Social Creature—even Criminals Do Not Fail That Way—they Are The Law's "loyal Opposition," So To Speak. But The Insane Are Always Mere Guests On Earth, Eternal Strangers Carrying Around Broken Decalogues That They Cannot Read.

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

Any Person With Any Imagination Is Bound To Be Afraid.

These Lights, This Brightness, These Clusters Of Human Hope, Of Wild Desire—i Shall Take These Lights In My Fingers. I Shall Make Them Bright, And Whether They Shine Or Not, It Is In These Fingers That They Shall Succeed Or Fail.

Draw Your Chair Up Close To The Edge Of The Precipice And I’ll Tell You A Story.

He Had Waited Five Years And Bought A Mansion Where He Dispensed Starlight To Casual Moths - So That He Could 'come Over' Some Afternoon To A Stranger's Garden.

Now He Realized The Truth: That Sacrifice Was No Purchase Of Freedom. It Was Like A Great Elective Office, It Was Like An Inheritance Of Power - To Certain People At Certain Times An Essential Luxury, Carrying With It Not A Guarantee But A Responsibility, Not A Security But An Infinite Risk. Its Very Momentum Might Drag Him Down To Ruin - The Passing Of The Emotional Wave That Made It Possible Might Leave The One Who Made It High And Dry Forever On An Island Of Despair...sacrifice By Its Very Nature Was Arrogant And Impersonal; Sacrifice Should Be Eternally Supercilious.

I Can’t Exactly Describe How I Feel But It’s Not Quite Right. And It Leaves Me Cold.

I Love New York On Summer Afternoons When Everyone's Away. There's Something Very Sensuous About It - Overripe, As If All Sorts Of Funny Fruits Were Going To Fall Into Your Hands.

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.

No One Person In The World Is Necessary To You Or To Me.

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?

Intelligence Is A Mere Instrument Of Circumstances.

Human Sympathy Has Its Limits.

Beautiful Things Grow To A Certain Height And Then They Fail And Fade Off, Breathing Out Memories As They Decay.

"what Are You Going To Do?" "can't Say - Run For President, Write -" "greenwich Village?" "good Heavens, No - I Said Write - Not Drink."

He Wanted To Appear Suddenly To Her In Novel And Heroic Colors. He Wanted To Stir Her From That Casualness She Showed Toward Everything Except Herself.

...one Emotion After Another Crept Into Her Face Like Objects Into A Slowly Developing Picture.

Nobody Ever Became A Writer Just By Wanting To Be One.

So We'll Just Let Things Take Their Course, And Never Be Sorry.

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.

Mostly, We Authors Must Repeat Ourselves - That's The Truth. We Have Two Or Three Great And Moving Experiences In Our Lives - Experiences So Great And Moving That It Doesn't Seem At The Time Anyone Else Has Been So Caught Up And So Pounded And Dazzled And Astonished And Beaten And Broken And Rescued And Illuminated And Rewarded And Humbled In Just That Way Ever Before. Then We Learn Our Trade, Well Or Less Well, And We Tell Our Two Or Three Stories - Each Time In A New Disguise - Maybe Ten Times, Maybe A Hundred, As Long As People Will Listen.

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

Here Was A New Generation, Shouting The Old Cries, Learning The Old Creeds, Through A Revery Of Long Days And Nights; Destined Finally To Go Out Into That Dirty Gray Turmoil To Follow Love And Pride; A New Generation Dedicated More Than The Last To The Fear Of Poverty And The Worship Of Success; Grown Up To Find All Gods Dead, All Wars Fought, All Faiths In Man Shaken.

The Unwelcome November Rain Had Perversely Stolen The Day's Last Hour And Pawned It With That Ancient Fence, The Night.

Here's To Alcohol, The Rose Colored Glasses Of Life.

And Lastly From That Period I Remember Riding In A Taxi One Afternoon Between Very Tall Buildings Under A Mauve And Rosy Sky; I Began To Bawl Because I Had Everything I Wanted And Knew I Would Never Be So Happy Again.

Understand Now, I'm Purely A Fiction Writer And Do Not Profess To Be An Earnest Student Of Political Science, But I Believe Strongly That Such A Law As One Prohibiting Liquor Is Foolish, And All The Writers, Keenly Interested In Human Welfare Whom I Know, Laugh At The Prohibition Law.

He Was Resentful Against All Those In Authority Over Him, And This, Combined With A Lazy Indifference Toward His Work, Exasperated Every Master In School. He Grew Discouraged And Imagined Himself A Pariah; Took To Sulking In Corners And Reading After Lights. With A Dread Of Being Alone He Attached A Few Friends, But Since They Were Not Among The Elite Of The School, He Used Them Simply As Mirrors Of Himself, Audiences Before Which He Might Do That Posing Absolutely Essential To Him. He Was Unbearably Lonely, Desperately Unhappy.

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

After All, Life Hasn't Much To Offer Except Youth, And I Suppose For Older People, The Love Of Youth In Others.

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

In Crowded Rooms They Would Form Words With Their Lips For Each Other's Eyes

One Thin's Sure And Nothing's Surer The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get - Children. In The Meantime, In Between Time...

The Words Seemed To Bite Physically Into Gatsby.

Working-girls, In Pairs And Groups And Swarms, Loitered By These Windows, Choosing Their Future Boudoirs From Some Resplendent Display Which Included Even A Man's Silk Pajamas Laid Domestically Across The Bed. They Stood In Front Of The Jewelry Stores And Picked Out Their Engagement Rings, And Their Wedding Rings And Their Platinum Wrist Watches, And Then Drifted On To Inspect The Feather Fans And Opera Cloaks; Meanwhile Digesting The Sandwiches And Sundaes They Had Eaten For Lunch.

I'm A Romantic; A Sentimental Person Thinks Things Will Last, A Romantic Person Hopes Against Hope That They Won't.

New York Had All The Iridescence Of The Beginning Of The World.

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.

Tired, Tired With Nothing, Tired With Everything, Tired With The World’s Weight He Had Never Chosen To Bear.

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

For What It's Worth, It's Never Too Late To Be Whoever You Want To Be. I Hope You Live A Life You're Proud Of And If You Find That You're Not, I Hope You Have The Strength To Start Over.

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.

The Rhythm Of The Weekend, With Its Birth, Its Planned Gaiety, And Its Announced End, Followed The Rhythm Of Life And Was A Substitute For It.

Switzerland Is A Country Where Very Few Things Begin, But Many Things End.

Lie To Me By The Moonlight. Do A Fabulous Story.

Very Few Of The People Who Accentuate The Futility Of Life Remark The Futility Of Themselves. Perhaps They Think That In Proclaiming The Evil Of Living They Somehow Salvage Their Own Worth From The Ruin - But They Don't, Even You And I.

Futility Of Life

If You Are Strong Enough, There Are No Precedents.

The Water Reached Up For Her, Pulled Her Down Tenderly Out Of The Heat, Seeped In Her Hair And Ran Into The Corners Of Her Body. She Turned Round And Round In It, Embracing It, Wallowing In It.

Her Face Was Sad And Lovely With Bright Things In It, Bright Eyes And A Bright Passionate Mouth, But There Was An Excitement In Her Voice That Men Who Had Cared For Her Found Difficult To Forget: A Singing Compulsion, A Whispered “listen,” A Promise That She Had Done Gay, Exciting Things Just A While Since And That There Were Gay, Exciting Things Hovering In The Next Hour.

I Am Tired Of Knowing Nothing And Being Reminded Of It All The Time.

Knowing Nothing

It Was Strange To Have No Self-to Be Like A Little Boy Left Alone In A Big House, Who Knew That Now He Could Do Anything He Wanted To Do, But Found That There Was Nothing That He Wanted To Do.

It Seemed That The Only Lover She Had Ever Wanted Was A Lover In A Dream.

So I Walked Away And Left Him Standing There In The Moonlight - Watching Over Nothing.

There Are No Second Acts In American Lives.

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.

He's Sensitive And I Don't Want Him To Break His Heart Over Somebody Who Doesn't Care About Him.

I Never Noticed The Stars Before. I Always Thought Of Them As Great Big Diamonds That Belonged To Some One. Now They Frighten Me. They Make Me Feel That It Was All A Dream, All My Youth.

I Want Leisure To Read—an Immense Amount.

The Test Of A First-rate Intelligence Is The Ability To Hold Two Opposed Ideas In Mind At The Same Time And Still Retain The Ability To Function.

Positive Thinking

No," Interrupted Marcia Emphatically. "and You're A Sweet Boy. Come Here And Kiss Me." Horace Stopped Quickly In Front Of Her. "why Do You Want Me To Kiss You?" He Asked Intently. "do You Just Go Round Kissing People?" "why, Yes," Admitted Marcia, Unruffled. "'at's All Life Is. Just Going Around Kissing People.

Optimism Is The Content Of Small Men In High Places.

They Had Spent A Year In France For No Particular Reason, And Then Drifted Here And There Unrestfully Wherever People Played Polo And Were Rich Together.

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

Then A Strange Thing Happened. She Turned To Him And Smiled, And As He Saw Her Smile Every Rag Of Anger And Hurt Vanity Dropped From Him — As Though His Very Moods Were But The Outer Ripples Of Her Own, As Though Emotion Rose No Longer In His Breast Unless She Saw Fit To Pull An Omnipotent Controlling Thread.

Interested, I Mean, With That Intense Personal Interest To Which Every One Has Some Vague Right At The End

What A Wonderful Song, She Thought-everything Was Wonderful Tonight, Most Of All This Romantic Scene In The Den With Their Hands Clinging And The Inevitable Looming Charmingly Close. The Future Vista Of Her Life Seemed An Unending Succession Of Scenes Like This: Under Moonlight And Pale Starlight, And In The Backs Of Warm Limousines And In Low Cosy Roadsters Stopped Under Sheltering Trees-only The Boy Might Change, And This One Was So Nice.

Isn't Hollywood A Dump-in The Human Sense Of The Word. A Hideous Town, Pointed Up By The Insulting Gardens Of Its Rich, Full Of The Human Spirit At A New Low Of Debasement.

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.

You Know I'm Old In Some Ways-in Others-well, I'm Just A Little Girl. I Like Sunshine And Pretty Things And Cheerfulness-and I Dread Responsibility.

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.

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

People Disappeared, Reappeared, Made Plans To Go Somewhere, And Then Lost Each Other, Searched For Each Other, Found Each Other A Few Feet Away.

Great Gatsby Book

I'm A Slave To My Emotions, To My Likes, To My Hatred Of Boredom, To Most Of My Desires

Intelligence Is Measured By A Person's Ability To See Validity Within Both Sides Of Contradicting Arguments.

To Have Something To Say Is A Question Of Sleepless Nights And Worry And Endless Ratiocination Of Subject - Of Endless Trying To Dig Out The Essential Truth, The Essential Justice. As A First Premise 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 The Conscience, You Are Just One Of Many Thousands Of Journalists.

But I Suppose You Must Touch Life In Order To Spring From It.

They're A Rotten Crowd', I Shouted Across The Lawn. 'you're Worth The Whole Damn Bunch Put Together.

It Makes Me Sad Because I've Never Seen Such--such Beautiful Shirts Before.

Great Gatsby American Dream

You Are The Finest, Loveliest, Tenderest, And Most Beautiful Person I Have Ever Known—and Even That Is An Understatement.

Amory Thought How It Was Only The Past That Seemed Strange And Unbelievable.

They Always Believe That 'things Are In A Bad Way Now,' But They 'haven't Any Faith In These Idealists.' One Minute They Call Wilson 'just A Dreamer, Not Practical'- A Year Later They Rail At Him For Making His Dreams Realities. They Haven't Clear Logical Ideas On One Single Subject Except A Sturdy, Stolid Opposition To All Change. They Don't Think Uneducated People Should Be Highly Paid, But They Won't See That If They Don't Pay The Uneducated People Their Children Are Going To Be Uneducated Too, And We're Going Round And Round In A Circle. That- Is The Great Middle Class.

For A Moment The Last Sunshine Fell With Romantic Affection Upon Her Glowing Face; Her Voice Compelled Me Forward Breathlessly As I Listened - Then The Glow Faded, Each Light Deserting Her With Lingering Regret, Like Children Leaving A Pleasant Street At Dusk.

I Was Haunted Always By My Other Life-my Drab Room In The Bronx, My Square Foot Of The Subway, My Fixation Upon The Day's Letter From Alabama-would It Come And What Would It Say?-my Shabby Suits, My Poverty, And Love. While My Friends Were Launching Decently Into Life I Had Muscled My Inadequate Bark Into Midstream... I Was A Failure-mediocre At Advertising Work And Unable To Get Started As A Writer. Hating The City, I Got Roaring, Weeping Drunk On My Last Penny And Went Home.

Never Miss A Party...good For The Nerves--like Celery.

The Two Basic Stories Of All Times Are Cinderella And Jack The Giant Killer-the Charm Of Women And The Courage Of Men.

When The Lightning Strikes One Of Us, It Strikes Both

Don't Be So Anxious About It,' She Laughed. 'i'm Not Used To Being Loved. I Wouldn't Know What To Do; I Never Got The Trick Of It.' She Looked Down At Him, Shy And Fatigued. 'so Here We Are. I Told You Years Ago That I Had The Makings Of Cinderella.' He Took Her Hand; She Drew It Back Instinctively And Then Replaced It In His. 'beg Your Pardon. Not Even Used To Being Touched. But I'm Not Afraid Of You, If You Stay Quiet And Don't Move Suddenly.

Let Us Learn To Show Our Friendship For A Man When He Is Alive And Not After He Is Dead.

She Was Overstrained With Grief And Loneliness: Almost Any Shoulder Would Have Done As Well.

You're A Slave, A Bound Helpless Slave To One Thing In The World, Your Imagination.

I Hope You Make The Best Of It. And I Hope You See Things That Startle You. I Hope You Feel Things You Never Felt Before. I Hope You Meet People With A Different Point Of View. I Hope You Live A Life You're Proud Of. If You Find That You're Not, I Hope You Have The Strength To Start All Over Again.

I Am Slow-thinking And Full Of Interior Rules That Act As Brakes On My Desires.

Great Gatsby Love

Then She Added In A Sort Of Childish Delight: 'we'll Be Poor, Won't We? Like People In Books. And I'll Be An Orphan And Utterly Free. Free And Poor! What Fun!' She Stopped And Raised Her Lips To Him In A Delighted Kiss. 'it's Impossible To Be Both Together,' Said John Grimly. 'people Have Found That Out. And I Should Choose To Be Free As Preferable Of The Two.

He's So Dumb He Doesn't Know He's Alive.

The First Lights Of The Evening Were Springing Into Pale Existence. The Ferris Wheel, Pricked Out Now In Lights, Revolved Leisurely Through The Dusk; A Few Empty Cars Of The Roller Coaster Rattled Overhead.

Wine Gave A Sort Of Gallantry To Their Own Failure.

This Is The Beauty I Want. Beauty Has Got To Be Astonishing, Astounding-- It's Got To Burst In On You Like A Dream, Like The Exquisite Eyes Of A Girl.

Take Off That Darn Fur Coat!...or Maybe You'd Like To Have Us Open All The Windows.

Never Confuse Activity With Action.

It Is In The Thirties That We Want Friends. In The Forties We Know They Won't Save Us Any More Than Love Did.

She Was A Mischief, And That Was A Satisfaction; No Longer Was She A Huntress Of Corralled Game

Whenever You Feel Like Criticizing Any One... Just Remember That All The People In This World Haven't Had The Advantages That You've Had.

No Grand Idea Was Ever Born In A Conference, But A Lot Of Foolish Ideas Have Died There.

There Must Have Been Moments Even That Afternoon When Daisy Tumbled Short Of His Dreams -- Not Through Her Own Fault, But Because Of The Colossal Vitality Of His Illusion. It Had Gone Beyond Her, Beyond Everything. He Had Thrown Himself Into It With A Creative Passion, Adding To It All The Time, Decking It Out With Every Bright Feather That Drifted His Way. No Amount Of Fire Or Freshness Can Challenge What A Man Will Store Up In His Ghostly Heart.

He Talked A Lot About The Past And I Gathered That He Wanted To Recover Something, Some Idea Of Himself Perhaps, That Had Gone Into Loving Daisy.

He Wanted To Care, And He Could Not Care. For He Had Gone Away And He Could Never Go Back Anymore. The Gates Were Closed, The Sun Was Down, And There Was No Beauty Left But The Gray Beauty Of Steel That Withstands All Time. Even The Grief He Could Have Borne Was Left Behind In The Country Of Youth, Of Illusion, Of The Richness Of Life, Where His Winter Dreams Had Flourished.

It’s Just That I Feel So Sad These Wonderful Nights. I Sort Of Feel They’re Never Coming Again, And I’m Not Really Getting All I Could Out Of Them.

But His Heart Was In A Constant, Turbulent Riot.

My Generation Of Radicals And Breakers-down Never Found Anything To Take The Place Of The Old Virtues Of Work And Courage And The Old Graces Of Courtesy And Politeness.

An Unread Book Is Just A Block Of Paper.

Courage To Me Means Ploughing Through That Dull Gray Mist That Comes Down On Life-not Only Overriding People And Circumstances But Overriding The Bleakness Of Living. A Sort Of Insistence On The Value Of Life And The Worth Of Transient Things...my Courage Is Faith-faith In The Eternal Resilience Of Me-that Joy'll Come Back, And Hope And Spontaneity. And I Feel That Till It Does, I've Got To Keep My Lips Shut And My Chin High, And My Eyes Wide

Tomorrow We Will Run Faster, Stretch Out Our Arms Farther.

Amory Took To Writing Poetry On Spring Afternoons, In The Gardens Of The Big Estates Near Princeton, While Swans Made Effective Atmosphere In The Artificial Pools, And Slow Clouds Sailed Harmoniously Above The Willow. May Came Too Soon, And Suddenly Unable To Bear Walls, He Wandered The Campus At All Hours Through Starlight And Rain.

You've Got An Awfully Kissable Mouth.

Everything That Begins, Begins With Blood.

As He Took Her Hand She Saw Him Look Her Over From Head To Foot, A Gesture She Recognized And That Made Her Feel At Home, But Gave Her Always A Faint Feeling Of Superiority To Whoever Made It. If Her Person Was Property She Could Exercise Whatever Advantage Was Inherent In Its Ownership.

The Officer Looked At Daisy While She Was Speaking, In A Way That Every Young Girl Wants To Be Looked At Sometime, And Because It Seemed Romantic To Me I Have Remembered The Incident Ever Since.

For A While These Reveries Provided An Outlet For His Imagination; They Were A Satisfactory Hint Of The Unreality Of Reality, A Promise That The Rock Of The World Was Founded Securely On A Fairy's Wing.

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

If That Was True He Must Have Felt That He Had Lost The Old Warm World, Paid A High Price For Living Too Long With A Single Dream.

Now The Standard Cure For One Who Is Sunk Is To Consider Those In Actual Destitution Or Physical Suffering—this Is An All-weather Beatitude For Gloom In General And Fairly Salutary Day-time Advice For Everyone. But At Three O’clock In The Morning, A Forgotten Package Has The Same Tragic Importance As A Death Sentence, And The Cure Doesn’t Work—and In A Real Dark Night Of The Soul It Is Always Three O’clock In The Morning, Day After Day.

Over The Great Bridge, With The Sunlight Through The Girders Making A Constant Flicker Upon The Moving Cars, With The City Rising Up Across The River In White Heaps And Sugar Lumps All Built With A Wish Out Of Non-olfactory Money. The City Seen From The Queensboro Bridge Is Always The City Seen For The First Time, In Its First Wild Promise Of All The Mystery And The Beauty In The World.

I Don't Much Care Where I Am Anymore, Nor Expect Very Much From Places.

The Worst Thing In The World Is To Try To Sleep And Not To.

Dishonesty In A Woman Is A Thing You Never Blame Deeply.

Great Gatsby Love

I Wasn't Actually In Love, But I Felt A Sort Of Tender Curiosity.

Life Is Progressive, No Matter What Our Intentions.

I Was Within And Without. Simultaneously Enchanted And Repelled By The Inexhaustible Variety Of Life.

Great Gatsby Book

The Mouth Was Wide Open And Ripped At The Corners, As Though She Had Choked A Little In Giving Up The Tremendous Vitality She Had Stored So Long.

The Victor Belongs To The Spoils.

They Were Still In The Happier Stage Of Love. They Were Full Of Brave Illusions About Each Other, Tremendous Illusions, So That The Communion Of Self With Self Seemed To Be On A Plane Where No Other Human Relations Mattered. They Both Seemed To Have Arrived There With An Extraordinary Innocence As Though A Series Of Pure Accidents Had Driven Them Together, So Many Accidents That At Last They Were Forced To Conclude That They Were For Each Other. They Had Arrived With Clean Hands, Or So It Seemed, After No Traffic With The Merely Curious And Clandestine.

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

A Writer's Temperament Is Continually Making Him Do Things He Can Never Repair.

Amory Wondered How People Could Fail To Notice That He Was A Boy Marked For Glory, And When Faces Of The Throng Turned Toward Him And Ambiguous Eyes Stared Into His, He Assumed The Most Romantic Of Expressions And Walked On The Air Cushions That Lie On The Asphalts Of Fourteen.

The Idea That To Make A Man Work You've Got To Hold Gold In Front Of His Eyes Is A Growth, Not An Axiom. We've Done That For So Long That We've Forgotten There's Any Other Way.

This Is What I Think Now: That The Natural State Of The Sentient Adult Is A Qualified Unhappiness.

The Transition From Libertine To Prig Was So Complete.

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

To Most Women Art Is A Form Of Scandal.

Her Philosophy Is Carpe Diem For Herself And Laissez Faire For Others.

Laissez Faire Capitalism

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

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.

No One Should Live Beyond 30.

Suddenly She Realized That What She Was Regretting Was Not The Lost Past But The Lost Future, Not What Had Not Been But What Would Never Be.

Don't Forget Who You Are And Where You Come From.

I Hope She'll Be A Fool -- That's The Best Thing A Girl Can Be In This World, A Beautiful Little Fool.

Grown Up, And That Is A Terribly Hard Thing To Do. It Is Much Easier To Skip It And Go From One Childhood To Another.

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

When You're Older You'll Know What People Who Love Suffer. The Agony. It's Better To Be Cold And Young Than To Love. It's Happened To Me Before But Never Like This - So Accidental - Just When Everything Was Going Well.

Amory: I Love You. Rosalind: I Love You- Now.

She Laughed With Thrilling Scorn. "sophisticated-god, I'm Sophisticated!

Actually That’s My Secret — I Can’t Even Talk About You To Anybody Because I Don’t Want Any More People To Know How Wonderful You Are.

Can't Repeat The Past?" He Cried Incredulously. "why Of Course You Can!" He Looked Around Him Wildly, As If The Past Were Lurking Here In The Shadow Of His House, Just Out Of Reach Of His Hand.

The Faces Of Most American Women Over Thirty Are Relief Maps Of Petulant And Bewildered Unhappiness.

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.

Trending Author

Walter Kaufmann

Category