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I Thought Of Gatsby's Wonder When He First Picked Out The Green Light At The End Of Daisy's Dock. He Had Come A Long Way To This Lawn And His Dream Must Have Seemed So Close That He Could Hardly Fail To Grasp It. He Did Not Know That It Was Already Behind Him. [- Nick Carroway]

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I Thought Of Gatsby's

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I Thought Of Gatsby's Wonder When He First Picked Out The Green Light At The End Of Daisy's Dock. He Had Come A Long Way To This Lawn And His Dream Must Have Seemed So Close That He Could Hardly Fail To Grasp It. He Did Not Know That It Was Already Behind Him. [- Nick Carroway]

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

Every One Suspects Himself Of At Least One Of The Cardinal Virtues, And This Is Mine: I Am One Of The Few Honest People That I Have Ever Known.

It Was Too Late - Everything Was Too Late. For Years Now He Had Dreamed The World Away, Basing His Decisions Upon Emotions Unstable As Water.

It’s A Great Advantage Not To Drink Among Hard Drinking People.

To Create Souls In Men, To Create Fine Happiness And Fine Despair She Must Remain Deeply Proud - Proud To Be Inviolate, Proud Also To Be Melting, To Be Passionate And Possessed.

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.

It Takes Two To Make An Accident.

She Was Incurably Dishonest.

Girls Like You Are Responsible For All The Tiresome Colorless Marriages; All Those Ghastly Inefficiencies That Pass As Feminine Qualities. What A Blow It Must Be When A Man With Imagination Marries The Beautiful Bundle Of Clothes That He's Been Building Ideals Around, And Finds That She's Just A Weak, Whining, Cowardly Mass Of Affectations!

Kiss Me Now, Love Me Now.

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

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.

Gold? Yellow, Glittering, Precious Gold?... This Yellow Slave Will Knit And Break Religions, Bless Th' Accursed, Make The Hoar Leprosy Adored, Place Thieves, And Give Them Title, Knee And Approbation With Senators On The Bench.

Having Once Found The Intensity Of Art, Nothing Else That Can Happen In Life Can Ever Again Seem As Important As The Creative Process.

I Love This Simply Because It's Cute, And I Guess It's A Sign Of The Times In Many Respect. It's Pretty Much Saying You Complete Me, Only In The Sweetest Way Possible.

You Have A Place In My Heart No One Else Ever Could Have.

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.

There Are Only The Pursued, The Pursuing, The Busy And The Tired.

Great Gatsby American Dream

They Slipped Briskly Into An Intimacy From Which They Never Recovered.

Shakespeare--whetting, Frustrating, Surprising And Gratifying.

Learn Young About Hard Work And Manners - And You'll Be Through The Whole Dirty Mess And Nicely Dead Again Before You Know It.

Their Lips Brushed Like Young Wild Flowers In The Wind.

You've Got An Awfully Kissable Mouth.

Boredom Is Not An End-product, Is Comparatively Rather An Early Stage In Life And Art. You've Got To Go By Or Past Or Through Boredom, As Through A Filter, Before The Clear Product Emerges.

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

Begin With An Individual, And Before You Know It You Find That You Have Created A Type; Begin With A Type, And You Find That You Have Created - Nothing.

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.

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

It Is Not Life That's Complicated, It's The Struggle To Guide And Control Life.

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.

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

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

He Must Have Felt That He Had Lost The Old Warm World, Paid A High Price For Living Too Long With A Single Dream. He Must Have Looked Up At An Unfamiliar Sky Through Frightening Leaves And Shivered As He Found What A Grotesque Thing A Rose Is And How Raw The Sunlight Was Upon The Scarcely Created Grass. A New World, Material Without Being Real, Where Poor Ghosts, Breathing Dreams Like Air, Drifted Fortuitously About...like That Ashen, Fantastic Figure Gliding Toward Him Through The Amorphous Trees.

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.

What'll We Do With Ourselves This Afternoon? And The Day After That, And The Next Thirty Years?

I Simply State That I'm A Product Of A Versatile Mind In A Restless Generation - With Every Reason To Throw My Mind And Pen In With The Radicals. Even If, Deep In My Heart, I Thought We Were All Blind Atoms In A World As Limited As A Stroke Of A Pendulum, I And My Sort Would Struggle Against Tradition; Try, At Least, To Displace Old Cants With New Ones. I've Thought I Was Right About Life At Various Times, But Faith Is Difficult. One Thing I Know. If Living Isn't Seeking For The Grail It May Be A Damned Amusing Game.

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.

Her Beautiful Eyes And Lips Were Very Grave As She Made Her Choice, And Anthony Thought Again How Naive Was Her Every Gesture; She Took All The Things Of Life For Hers To Choose From And Apportion, As Though She Were Continually Picking Out Presents For Herself From An Inexhaustible Counter.

I Want To Do Everything In The World With You.

Youth Is Like Having A Big Plate Of Candy. Sentimentalists Think They Want To Be In The Pure, Simple State They Were In Before They Ate The Candy. They Don't. They Just Want The Fun Of Eating It All Over Again.

A Sense Of The Fundamental Decencies Is Parceled Out Unequally At Birth.

Great Gatsby Important

You'll Find Another.' God! Banish The Thought. Why Don't You Tell Me That 'if The Girl Had Been Worth Having She'd Have Waited For You'? No, Sir, The Girl Really Worth Having Won't Wait For Anybody.

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

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.

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.

Scratch A Yale Man With Both Hands And You'll Be Lucky To Find A Coast-guard. Usually You Find Nothing At All.

I Was Enjoying Myself Now. I Had Taken Two Finger Bowls Of Champagne And The Scene Had Changed Before My Eyes Into Something Significant, Elemental And Profound.

They Had Never Been Closer In Their Month Of Love, Nor Communicated More Profoundly One With Another, Than When She Brushed Silent Lips Against His Coat's Shoulder Or When He Touched The End Of Her Fingers, Gently, As Though She Were Asleep.

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

There Has Never Been An American Tragedy. There Have Only Been Great Failures.

One Girl Can Be Pretty - But A Dozen Are Only A Chorus.

Life Is Essentially A Cheat And Its Conditions Are Those Of Defeat; The Redeeming Things Are Not Happiness And Pleasure But The Deeper Satisfactions That Come Out Of Struggle.

You're A Rotten Driver,' I Protested. 'either You Ought To Be More Careful Or You Oughtn't To Drive At All.' 'i Am Careful.' 'no, You're Not.' 'well, Other People Are,' She Said Lightly. 'what's That Got To Do With It?' 'they'll Keep Out Of My Way,' She Insisted. 'it Takes Two To Make An Accident.' 'suppose You Met Somebody Just As Careless As Yourself.' 'i Hope I Never Will,' She Answered. 'i Hate Careless People. That's Why I Like You.' Her Grey, Sun-strained Eyes Stared Straight Ahead, But She Had Deliberately Shifted Our Relations, And For A Moment I Thought I Loved Her.

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

Well, Let It Pass, He Thought; April Is Over, April Is Over. There Are All Kinds Of Love In The World, But Never The Same Love Twice. --the Sensible Thing

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.

Englishmen Must Have An Island.

Never Confuse Activity With Action.

We All Have Souls Of Different Ages

But With Every Word She Was Drawing Further And Further Into Herself, So He Gave That Up, And Only The Dead Dream Fought On As The Afternoon Slipped Away, Trying To Touch What Was No Longer Tangible, Struggling Unhappily, Undespairingly, Toward That Lost Voice Across The Room.

When Eleanor's Arm Touched His He Felt His Hands Grow Cold With Deadly Fear Lest He Should Lose The Shadow Brush With Which His Imagination Was Painting Wonders Of Her. He Watched Her From The Corners Of His Eyes As Ever He Did When He Walked With Her-- She Was A Feast And A Folly And He Wished It Had Been His Destiny To Sit Forever On A Haystack And See Life Through Her Green Eyes.

I Wish I Could Write. I Get These Ideas But I Never Seem To Be Able To Put Them In Words.

It Was Always The Becoming He Dreamed Of, Never The Being.

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.

He Had Angered Providence By Resisting Too Many Temptations. There Was Nothing Left But Heaven, Where He Would Meet Only Those Who, Like Him, Had Wasted Earth.

So He Tasted The Deep Pain That Is Reserved Only For The Strong, Just As He Had Tasted For A Little While The Deep Happiness.

...their Eyes Are Full Of Kindness As Each Feels The Full Effect Of Novelty After A Short Separation. They Are Drawing A Relaxation From Each Other's Presence, A New Serenity.

Life Cracked Like Ice!

Then I Grew Up, And The Beauty Of Succulent Illusions Fell Away From Me.

The Kiss Originated When The First Male Reptile Licked The First Female Reptile, Implying In A Subtle Way That She Was As Succulent As The Small Reptile He Had For Dinner The Night Before.

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

To Be Kind Is More Important Than To Be Right. Many Times, What People Need Is Not A Brilliant Mind That Speaks But A Special Heart That Listens.

He Snatched The Book From Me And Replaced It Hastily On Its Shelf, Muttering That If One Brick Was Removed The Whole Library Was Liable To Collapse.

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

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

He Found What A Grotesque Thing A Rose Is And How Raw The Sunlight Was Upon The Scarcely Created Grass.

Great Gatsby American Dream

I've Given Parties That Have Made Indian Rajahs Green With Envy. I've Had Prima Donnas Break $10,000 Engagements To Come To My Smallest Dinners. When You Were Still Playing Button Back In Ohio, I Entertained On A Cruising Trip That Was So Much Fun That I Had To Sink My Yacht To Make My Guests Go Home.

What Do You Think Of That? It’s Stopped Raining." I’m Glad Jay." Her Throat, Full Of Aching, Grieving Beauty, Told Only Of Her Unexpected Joy.

This Is A Valley Of Ashes--a Fantastic Farm Where Ashes Grow Like Wheat Into Ridges And Hills And Grotesque Gardens; Where Ashes Take The Forms Of Houses And Chimneys And Rising Smoke And, Finally, With A Transcendent Effort, Of Men Who Move Dimly And Already Crumbling Through The Powdery Air. Occasionally A Line Of Gray Cars Crawls Along An Invisible Track, Gives Out A Ghastly Creak, And Comes To Rest, And Immediately The Ash-gray Men Swarm Up With Leaden Spades And Stir Up An Impenetrable Cloud, Which Screens Their Obscure Operations From Your Sight.

All She Wanted Was To Be A Little Girl, To Be Efficiently Taken Care Of By Some Yielding Yet Superior Power, Stupider And Steadier Than Herself. It Seemed That The Only Lover She Had Ever Wanted Was A Lover In A Dream

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

But There Was An Immediately Perceptible Vitality About Her As If The Nerves Of Her Body Were Continually Smouldering.

The Helpless Ecstasy Of Loosing Himself In Her Charm Was A Powerful Opiate Rather Than A Tonic.

Love Is Fragile -- She Was Thinking -- But Perhaps The Pieces Are Saved, The Things That Hovered On Lips, That Might Have Been Said. The New Love-words, The Tenderness Learned, And Treasured Up For The Next Lover.

I Was In Love With A Whirlwind, So When The Girl Threw Me Over, I Went Home And Finished My Novel.

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.

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.

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

Little Montenegro! He Lifted Up The Words And Nodded At Them-with His Smile. The Smile Comprehended Montenegro’s Troubled History And Sympathized With The Brave Struggles Of The Montenegrin People. It Appreciated Fully The Chain Of National Circumstances, Which Had Elicited This Tribute From Montenegro’s Warm Little Heart. My Incredulity Was Submerged In Fascination Now; It Was Like Skimming Hastily Through A Dozen Magazines.

Her Voice Is Full Of Money.

Hard To Sit Here And Be Close To You, And Not Kiss You.

Tender Is The Night

I Want To Die Violently Instead Of Fading Out Sentimentally.

My Latest Tendency Is To Collapse About 11:00 And With The Tears Flowing From My Eyes Or The Gin Rising To Their Level And Leaking Over, And Tell Interested Friends Or Acquaintances That I Haven't A Friend In The World And Likewise Care For Nobody.

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.

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

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

So They Were Desperately In Love And Being Desperately In Love Involves A Desperate Existence.

I Learned A Little Of Beauty - Enough To Know That It Had Nothing To Do With Truth.

She Saw Something Awful In The Very Simplicity She Failed To Understand.

Experience Is Not Worth The Getting. It's Not A Thing That Happens Pleasantly To A Passive You--it's A Wall That An Active You Runs Up Against.

There's No Beauty Without Poignancy And There's No Poignancy Without The Feeling That It's Going, Men, Names, Books, Houses--bound For Dust--mortal--

The Growth Of Intimacy Is Like That. First One Gives Off His Best Picture, The Bright And Finished Product Mended With Bluff And Falsehood And Humour. Then More Details Are Required And One Paints A Second Portrait, And A Third – Before Long The Best Lines Cancel Out – And The Secret Is Exposed At Last; The Planes Of The Pictures Have Intermingled And Given Us Away, And Though We Paint And Paint We Can No Longer Sell A Picture. We Must Be Satisfied With Hoping That Such Fatuous Accounts Of Ourselves As We Make To Our Wives And Children And Business Associates Are Accepted As True

And In The End, We Were All Just Humans...drunk On The Idea That Love, Only Love, Could Heal Our Brokenness.

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.

Character Is Plot, Plot Is Character.

Her Body Calculated To A Millimeter To Suggest A Bud Yet Guarantee A Flower.

Forgotten Is Forgiven.

They Were Still In The Happier Stages 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.

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

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.

Don't Say 'wife.' I'm Your Mistress. Wife's Such An Ugly Word. Your 'permanent Mistress' Is So Much More Tangible And Desirable… .

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.

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!

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

They Were Stars On This Stage, Each Playing To An Audience Of Two: The Passion Of Their Pretense Created The Actuality. Here, Finally, Was The Quintessence Of Self-expression-- Yet It Was Probable That For The Most Part Their Love Expressed Gloria Rather Than Anthony. He Felt Often Like A Scarecly Tolerated Guest At A Party She Was Giving.

An Author Ought To Write For The Youth Of His Own Generation, The Critics Of The Next, And The Schoolmaster Of Ever Afterwards.

As Soon As I Arrived I Made An Attempt To Find My Host But The Two Or Three People Of Whom I Asked His Whereabouts Stared At Me In Such An Amazed Way And Denied So Vehemently An Knowledge Of His Movements That I Slunk Off In The Direction Of The Cocktail Table--the Only Place In The Garden Where A Single Man Could Linger Without Looking Purposeless And Alone.

New York Had All The Iridescence Of The Beginning Of The World. The Returning Troops Marched Up Fifth Avenue And Girls Were Instinctively Drawn East And North Toward Them - This Was The Greatest Nation And There Was Gala In The Air.

There Was Even A Recurrent Idea In America About An Education That Would Leave Out History And The Past, That Should Be A Sort Of Equipment For Aerial Adventure, Weighed Down By None Of The Stowaways Of Inheritance Or Tradition.

There's No Substitute For Will. Sometimes You Have To Fake Will When You Don't Feel It At All.

In The Morning You Were Never Violently Sorry-- You Made No Resolutions, But If You Had Overdone It And Your Heart Was Slightly Out Of Order, You Went On The Wagon For A Few Days Without Saying Anything About It, And Waited Until An Accumulation Of Nervous Boredom Projected You Into Another Party.

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

I Think That We Already Have A Really Good System In Town, But I Have A Vision That It Could Be Even Better. My Vision Is That Academic Excellence Is The Area That We Should Pursue More, Coupled With Fiscal Discipline.

Academic Excellence

This Is Perhaps The Best Feeling In The World. I Love Going To Sleep At Night And Wondering What Weird And Wonderful Dreams I'm Going To Have However I Always Prolong Sleep As Long As Possible, Immeasurably Happy Simply Listening To The Sound Of My Fiancees Breathing And Feeling His Arms Around Me. It's When You Fall In Love With These Little Things That You Know You're Truly In Love.

Falling In Love

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Premature Success Gives One An Almost Mystical Conception Of Destiny As Opposed To Will Power-at Its Worst The Napoleonic Delusion.

A Man's Social Rank Is Determined By The Amount Of Bread He Eats In A Sandwich.

Let Me Tell You About The Very Rich. They Are Different From You And Me.

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 Thought Of Gatsby's Wonder When He First Picked Out The Green Light At The End Of Daisy's Dock. He Had Come A Long Way To This Lawn And His Dream Must Have Seemed So Close That He Could Hardly Fail To Grasp It. He Did Not Know That It Was Already Behind Him. [- Nick Carroway]

Smoking Had Come To Be An Important Punctuation Mark In The Long Sentence Of A Day On The Road.

Punctuation Marks

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

The Exhilarating Ripple Of Her Voice Was A Wild Tonic In The Rain.

You're The Only Girl I've Seen For A Long Time That Actually Did Look Like Something Blooming.

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.

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

You Remind Me Of A Smoked Cigarette.

The Compensation Of A Very Early Success Is A Conviction That Life Is A Romantic Matter. In The Best Sense One Stays Young.

Genius Is The Ability To Put Into Effect What Is On Your Mind.

Thirty--the Promise Of A Decade Of Loneliness, A Thinning List Of Single Men To Know, A Thinning Brief-case Of Enthusiasm, Thinning Hair.

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.

Speech Is An Arrangement Of Notes That Will Never Be Played Again.

Often People Display A Curious Respect For A Man Drunk, Rather Like The Respect Of Simple Races For The Insane... There Is Something Awe-inspiring In One Who Has Lost All Inhibitions.

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.

Show Me A Hero And I'll Write You A Tragedy.

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.

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.

Almost Everybody Can Be Imagined As Either A Cat Or A Dog.

There Was No God In His Heart, He Knew; His Ideas Were Still In Riot; There Was Ever The Pain Of Memory; The Regret For His Lost Youth-yet The Waters Of Disillusion Had Left A Deposit On His Soul, Responsibility And A Love Of Life, The Faint Stirring Of Old Ambitions And Unrealized Dreams...... And He Could Not Tell Why The Struggle Was Worth While, Why He Had Determined To Use To The Utmost Himself And His Heritage From The Personalities He Had Passed... He Stretched Out His Arms To The Crystalline, Radiant Sky. I Know Myself," He Cried, "but That Is All.

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

Something Was Making Him Nibble At The Edge Of Stale Ideas As If His Sturdy Physical Egotism No Longer Nourished His Peremptory Heart.

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

I Was Thirty. Before Me Stretched The Portentous, Menacing Road Of A New Decade.

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

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

Great Gatsby Love

I Want To Know You Moved And Breathed In The Same World With Me.

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

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

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

I’m Not Sure What I’ll Do, But— Well, I Want To Go Places And See People. I Want My Mind To Grow. I Want To Live Where Things Happen On A Big Scale.

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.

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.

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

Feel Like Criticizing Any One," He Told Me, "just Remember

Great Gatsby Love

A Great Social Success Is A Pretty Girl Who Plays Her Cards As Carefully As If She Were Plain.

I Talk With The Authority Of Failure - Ernest With The Authority Of Success. We Could Never Sit Across The Same Table Again.

The Truth Was That For Some Months He Had Been Going Through That Partitioning Of The Things Of Youth Wherein It Is Decided Whether Or Not To Die For What One No Longer Believes.

So We Drove On Toward Death Through The Cooling Twilight.

Great Gatsby Gatsby

Advertising Is A Racket, Like The Movies And The Brokerage Business. You Cannot Be Honest Without Admitting That Its Constructive Contribution To Humanity Is Exactly Minus Zero.

The Words Seemed To Bite Physically Into Gatsby.

I Am Still A Little Afraid Of Missing Something If I Forget That, As My Father Snobbishly Suggested, And I Snobbishly Repeat, A Sense Of The Fundamental Decencies Is Parcelled Out Unequally At Birth.

No Decent Career Was Ever Founded On A Public.

Sometimes I Don't Know Whether I'm Real Or Whether I'm A Character In One Of My Novels.

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.

Receding From Grief, It Seems Necessary To Retrace The Same Steps That Brought Us There.

He Was Handsome Then If Never Before, Bound For One Of Those Immortal Moments Which Come So Radiantly That Their Remembered Light Is Enough To See By For Years.

I Want Leisure To Read—an Immense Amount.

First, He Realized That The Sea Was Blue And That There Was An Enormous Quantity Of It, And That It Roared And Roared-really All The Banalities About The Ocean That One Could Realize, But If Any One Had Told Him Then That These Things Were Banalities, He Would Have Gaped In Wonder.

Enormous Quantities

Travel, Which Had Once Charmed Him, Seemed, At Length, Unendurable, A Business Of Color Without Substance, A Phantom Chase After His Own Dream's Shadow.

To Most Women Art Is A Form Of Scandal.

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

"i Was Counting The Waves", Replied Amory Gravely, "i'm Going In For Statistics".

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

Genius Goes Around The World In Its Youth Incessantly Apologizing For Having Large Feet. What Wonder That Later In Life It Should Be Inclined To Raise Those Feet Too Swiftly To Fools And Bores.

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.

She Felt A Little Betrayed And Sad, But Presently A Moving Object Came Into Sight. It Was A Huge Horse-chestnut Tree In Full Bloom Bound For The Champs Elysees, Strapped Now Into A Long Truck And Simply Shaking With Laughter - Like A Lovely Person In An Undignified Position Yet Confident None The Less Of Being Lovely. Looking At It With Fascination, Rosemary Identified Herself With It, And Laughed Cheerfully With It, And Everything All At Once Seemed Gorgeous.

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.

But His Heart Was In A Constant, Turbulent Riot.

Then He Kissed Her. At His Lips' Touch She Blossomed For Him Like A Flower And The Incarnation Was Complete.

Great Gatsby Love

Tireless Passion, Fierce Jealousy, Longing To Possess And Crush-these Alone Were Left Of All His Love For Rosalind; These Remained To Him As Payment For The Loss Of His Youth-bitter Calomel Under The Thin Sugar Of Love's Exaltation.

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.

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

Beware The Artist Who's An Intellectual Also. The Artist Who Doesn't Fit.

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

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

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Agnetha Faltskog

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

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