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Intermittently She Caught The Gist Of His Sentences And Supplied The Rest From Her Subconscious, As One Picks Up The Striking Of A Clock In The Middle With Only The Rhythm Of The First Uncounted Strokes Lingering In The Mind.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Intermittently She Caught The

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Intermittently She Caught The Gist Of His Sentences And Supplied The Rest From Her Subconscious, As One Picks Up The Striking Of A Clock In The Middle With Only The Rhythm Of The First Uncounted Strokes Lingering In The Mind.

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I Don't Like Girls In The Daytime,' He Said Shortly, And Then Thinking This A Bit Abrupt, He Added: 'but I Like You.' He Cleared His Throat. 'i Like You First And Second And Third.

The Sign Of Intelligence Is The Ability To Carry Opposed Thoughts At The Same Time.

When People Are Taken Out Of Their Depths They Lose Their Heads, No Matter How Charming A Bluff They May Put Up.

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.

Everywhere We Go And Move On And Change, Something's Lost--something's Left Behind. You Can't Ever Quite Repeat Anything, And I've Been So Yours, Here--

The Transition From Libertine To Prig Was So Complete.

Often A Man Can Play The Helpless Child In Front Of A Woman, But He Can Almost Never Bring It Off When He Feels Most Like A Helpless Child.

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

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

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.

A Stirring Warmth Flowed From Her, As If Her Heart Was Trying To Come Out To You Concealed In One Of Those Breathless, Thrilling Words.

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.

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.

It Is Youth’s Felicity As Well As Its Insufficiency That It Can Never Live In The Present, But Must Always Be Measuring Up The Day Against Its Own Radiantly Imagined Future

Live In The Present

They Talked Aimlessly Back And Forth, Each Speaking For The Other.

Character Is Plot, Plot Is Character.

Don't Let Yourself Feel Worthless: Often Through Life You Will Really Be At Your Worst When You Seem To Think Best Of Yourself; And Don't Worry About Losing Your "personality," As You Persist In Calling It: At Fifteen You Had The Radiance Of Early Morning, At Twenty You Will Begin To Have The Melancholy Brilliance Of The Moon, And When You Are My Age You Will Give Out, As I Do, The Genial Golden Warmth Of 4 P.m.

How The Unforgettable Faces Of Dusk Would Blend To Her, The Myriad Footsteps, A Thousand Overtures, Would Blend To Her Footsteps; And There Would Be More Drunkenness Than Wine In The Softness Of Her Eyes On His.

Somewhere Inside Me There’ll Always Be The Person I Am To-night

Tender Is The Night

Life Is A Comedy For Those Who Think And A Tragedy For Those Who Feel. Show Me A Hero And I Will Write You A Tragedy.

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

Why Shouldn't He? All Life Is Just A Progression Toward And Then A Recession From One Phrase-- 'i Love You

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

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

Punctuation Marks

One Should, For Example, Be Able To See That Things Are Hopeless And Yet Be Determined To Make Them Otherwise.

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.

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.

You See I Usually Find Myself Among Strangers Because I Drift Here And There Trying To Forget The Sad Things That Happened To Me.

One Of Those Men Who Reach Such An Acute Limited Excellence At Twenty−one That Everything Afterward Savors Of Anti−climax.

Was It The Infinite Sadness Of Her Eyes That Drew Him Or The Mirror Of Himself That He Found In The Gorgeous Clarity Of Her Mind?

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.

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.

To Most Women Art Is A Form Of Scandal.

If You're In Love It Ought To Make You Happy. You Ought To Laugh.

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.

Work Like Hell! I Had 122 Rejection Slips Before I Sold A Story.

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.

A Lot Of Young Girls Together Is A Romantic Secret Thing Like The First Sight Of Wild Ducks At Dawn.

He Had No Plans, No Definite Intentions, Except To Kiss Her Lips Again, To Hold Her In His Arms.

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

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.

Possibly It Had Occurred To Him The Colossal Significance Of That Light Had Now Vanished Forever. [...] It Had Seemed As Close As A Star To The Moon. Now It Was A Green Light On A Dock. His Count Of Enchanted Objects Had Diminished By One.

Nancy Had A Mouth Like A Remembered Kiss.

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

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.

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.

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.

Cut Out All These Exclamation Points. An Exclamation Point Is Like Laughing At Your Own Joke.

It Occurred To Me That There Was No Difference Between Men, In Intelligence Or Race, So Profound As The Difference Between The Sick And The Well.

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.

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--

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]

But His Heart Was In A Constant, Turbulent Riot.

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

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.

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

Great Gatsby Love

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.

It's Not A Slam At You When People Are Rude, It's A Slam At The People They've Met Before.

The Victor Belongs To The Spoils.

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

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

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

I Noticed That She Wore Her Evening Dress, All Her Dresses, Like Sports Clothes-there Was A Jauntiness About Her Movements As If She Had First Learned To Walk Upon A Golf Course On Clean, Crisp, Mornings.

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.

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

Great Gatsby Important

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.

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

There Was A Kindliness About Intoxication - There Was That Indescribable Gloss And Glamour It Gave, Like The Memories Of Ephemeral And Faded Evenings.

The Greatest Profound Pain Is Cased By, And Is The Result Of Our Own Illusions, Fantasies And Dreams.

It's A Great Advantage Not To Drink Among Hard-drinking People. You Can Hold Your Tongue, And, Moreover, You Can Time Any Little Irregularity Of Your Own So That Everybody Else Is So Blind That They Don't See Or Care.

Their Lips Brushed Like Young Wild Flowers In The Wind.

She Knew Few Words And Believed In None.

We Both Fitted. If Our Corners Were Not Rubbed Off They Were At Least Pulled In. But Deep In Us Both Was Something That Made Us Require More For Happiness. I Didn't Know What I Wanted

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.

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

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

Everything That Begins, Begins With Blood.

The Rich Are Different From Us.

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

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

But I Always Felt That I'd Rather Be Provincial Hot-tamale Than Soup Without Seasoning.

I Suppose Books Mean More Than People To Me Anyway

He Felt Married To Her, That Was All.

A Writer Like Me Must Have An Utter Confidence, An Utter Faith In His Star. It's An Almost Mystical Feeling, A Feeling Of Nothing-can-happen-to Me, Nothing-can-touch-me.... I Once Had It. But Through A Series Of Blows, Many Of Them My Own Fault, Something Happened To That Sense Of Immunity And I Lost My Grip.

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

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

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.

That Voice Was A Deathless Song.

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

You Know, You’re A Little Complicated After All.” “oh No,” She Assured Him Hastily. “no, I’m Not Really - I’m Just A - I’m Just A Whole Lot Of Different Simple People.

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.

You Are Mine-you Know You're Mine!" He Cried Wildly...the Moonlight Twisted In Through The Vines And Listened...the Fireflies Hung Upon Their Whispers As If To Win His Glance From The Glory Of Their Eyes.

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

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.

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.

That However The Brains And Abilities Of Men May Differ, Their Stomachs Are Essentially The Same.

You're Not Sorry To Go, Of Course. With People Like Us Our Home Is Where We Are Not... No One Person In The World Is Necessary To You Or To Me.

I Learned A Little Of Beauty - Enough To Know That It Had Nothing To Do With Truth - And I Found, Moreover, That There Was No Great Literary Tradition; There Was Only The Tradition Of The Eventful Death Of Every Literary Tradition.

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

Every Act Of Life, From The Morning Toothbrush To The Friend At Dinner, Became An Effort. I Hated The Night When I Couldn't Sleep And I Hated The Day Because It Went Toward Night.

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.

He Was Going To Live In New York, And Be Known At Every Restaurant And Café, Wearing A Dress Suit From Early Evening To Early Morning, Sleeping Away The Dull Hours Of The Forenoon.

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

The Best Contacts Are When One Knows The Obstacles And Still Wants To Preserve A Relation.

Tender Is The Night

The Farmers May Be The Backbone Of The Country, But Who Wants To Be A Backbone?

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.

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

Situations In Life

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.

There Is No Confusion Like The Confusion Of A Simple Mind.

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

Great Gatsby Love

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

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.

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.

When The Lightning Strikes One Of Us, It Strikes Both

You Can’t Repeat The Past.” “can’t Repeat The Past?” He Cried Incredulously. “why Of Course You Can!

Great Gatsby Love

Great Gatsby American Dream

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

There Was Never A Good Biography Of A Good Novelist. There Couldn't Be. He Is Too Many People If He's Any Good.

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.

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

Blessed Are The Dead That The Rain Falls On.

I Was Rather Literary In College—one Year I Wrote A Series Of Very Solemn And Obvious Editorials For The 'yale News.'—and Now I Was Going To Bring Back All Such Things Into My Life And Become Again That Most Limited Of All Specialists, The 'well-rounded Man.' This Isn’t Just An Epigram—life Is Much More Successfully Looked At From A Single Window, After All.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

They Seemed Nearer, Not Only Mentally, But Physically When They Read ... Their Chance Was To Make Everything Fine And Finished And Rich And Imaginative; They Must Bend Tiny Golden Tentacles From His Imagination To Hers, That Would Take The Place Of The Great, Deep Love That Was Never So Near, Yet Never So Much Of A Dream.

"oh, You Want Too Much!" She Cried To Gatsby. "i Love You Now - Isn't That Enough? I Can't Help What's Past." She Began To Sob Helplessly. "i Did Love Him Once-but I Loved You Too." Gatsby's Eyes Opened And Closed. "you Loved Me Too?" He Repeated. "even That's A Lie," Said Tom Savagely. "she Didn't Know You Were Alive. Why - There're Things Between Daisy And Me That You'll Never Know, Things That Neither Of Us Can Ever Forget."

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.

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.

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.

And Yale Is November, Crisp And Energetic.

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

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

Even When The East Excited Me Most, Even When I Was Keenly Aware Of Its Superiority To The Broad, Sprawling, Swollen Towns Beyond The Ohio, With Their Interminable Inquisitions Which Only Spared Children And The Very Old-even Then It Had Always For Me A Quality Of Distortion.

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

Then Came The War, Old Sport. It Was A Great Relief, And I Tried Very Hard To Die, But I Seemed To Bear An Enchanted Life.

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

Daisy Began To Sing With The Music In A Husky, Rhythmic Whisper, Bringing Out A Meaning In Each Word That It Had Never Had Before And Would Never Have Again. When The Melody Rose, Her Voice Broke Up Sweetly, Following It, In A Way Contralto Voices Have, And Each Change Tipped Out A Little Of Her Warm Human Magic Upon The Air.

Happiness, Remarked Maury Noble One Day, Is Only The First Hour After The Alleviation Of Some Especially Intense Misery.

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

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

They Were Smiling At Each Other As If This Was The Beginning Of The World.

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.

Things Are Sweeter When They're Lost. I Know--because Once I Wanted Something And Got It. It Was The Only Thing I Ever Wanted Badly, Dot, And When I Got It It Turned To Dust In My Hand.

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

Intermittently She Caught The Gist Of His Sentences And Supplied The Rest From Her Subconscious, As One Picks Up The Striking Of A Clock In The Middle With Only The Rhythm Of The First Uncounted Strokes Lingering In The Mind.

Her Beauty Climbed The Rolling Slope, It Came Into The Room, Rustling Ghost-like Through The Curtains.

I Was Too Absorbed To Be Responsive

It Isn't Given To Us To Know Those Rare Moments When People Are Wide Open And The Lightest Touch Can Wither Or Heal. A Moment Too Late And We Can Never Reach Them Any More In This World. They Will Not Be Cured By Our Most Efficacious Drugs Or Slain With Our Sharpest Swords.

Once In A While I Go Off On A Spree And Make A Fool Of Myself, But I Always Come Back, And In My Heart I Love Her All The Time. - The Great Gatsby.

Great Gatsby Love

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’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.

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

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

Never Confuse A Single Defeat With A Final Defeat.

It Takes Two To Make An Accident.

It Was Dawn Now On Long Island And We Went About Opening The Rest Of The Windows Downstairs, Filling The House With Gray-turning, Gold-turning Light. The Shadow Of A Tree Fell Abruptly Across The Dew And Ghostly Birds Began To Sing Among The Blue Leaves. There Was A Slow, Pleasant Movement In The Air, Scarcely A Wind, Promising A Cool, Lovely Day.

I'll Never Be A Poet,' Said Amory As He Finished. 'i'm Not Enough Of A Sensualist Really; There Are Only A Few Obvious Things That I Notice As Primarily Beautiful: Women, Spring Evenings, Music At Night, The Sea; I Don't Catch The Subtle Things Like 'silver-snarling Trumpets.' I May Turn Out An Intellectual, But I'll Never Right Anything But Mediocre Poetry.

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.

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

Reporting The Extreme Things As If They Were The Average Things Will Start You On The Art Of Fiction.

She Was Incurably Dishonest.

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.

Long Ago, There Was Something In Me, But Now That Thing Is Gone. Now That Thing Is Gone, That Thing Is Gone. I Cannot Cry. I Cannot Care. That Thing Will Come Back No More.

There Used To Be Two Kinds Of Kisses: First When Girls Were Kissed And Deserted; Second, When They Were Engaged. Now There's A Third Kind, Where The Man Is Kissed And Deserted. If Mr. Jones Of The Nineties Bragged He'd Kissed A Girl, Everyone Knew He Was Through With Her. If Mr. Jones Of 1919 Brags The Same, Everyone Knows It's Because He Can't Kiss Her Any More. Given A Decent Start Any Girl Can Beat A Man Nowadays.

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

A Squalid Phantasmagoria Of Breath

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.

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.

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.

The Truth Was That Jay Gatsby, Of West Egg, Long Island, Sprang From His Platonic Conception Of Himself. He Was A Son Of God—a Phrase Which, If It Means Anything, Means Just That—and He Must Be About His Father’s Business, The Service Of A Vast, Vulgar And Meretricious Beauty.

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.

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.

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.

Books Are Like Brothers. I Am An Only Child. Gatsby [is] My Imaginary Eldest Brother.

I Want To Be A Society Vampire, You See.

So When The Blue Smoke Of Brittle Leaves Was In The Air And The Wind Blew The Wet Laundry Stiff On The Line I Decided To Come Back Home.

Then, As Though It Had Been Waiting On A Near By Roof For Their Arrival, The Moon Came Slanting Suddenly Through The Vines And Turned The Girl's Face The Color Of White Roses.

No Matter How Low You Go, There's Always An Unexplored Basement.

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'm Inclined To Reserve All Judgement, A Habit That Has Opened Up Many Curious Natures To Me And Made Me The Victim Of Not A Few Veteran Bores. The Abnormal Mind Is Quick To Detect And Attach Itself To This Quality When It Appears In A Normal Person, And So It Came About That In College I Was Unjustly Accused Of Being A Politician, Because I Was Privy To The Secret Griefs Of Wild, Unknown Men.

The Easiest Way To Get A Reputation Is To Go Outside The Fold, Shout Around For A Few Years As A Violent Atheist Or A Dangerous Radical, And Then Crawl Back To The Shelter.

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

Reserving Judgements Is A Matter Of Infinite Hope.

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

I Can’t Tell You Just How Wonderful She Is. I Don’t Want You To Know. I Don’t Want Any One To Know.

I Couldn’t Forgive Him Or Like Him, But I Saw That What He Had Done Was, To Him, Entirely Justified. It Was All Very Careless And Confused. They Were Careless People, Tom And Daisy—they Smashed Up Things And Creatures And Then Retreated Back Into Their Money Or Their Vast Carelessness, Or Whatever It Was That Kept Them Together, And Let Other People Clean Up The Mess They Had Made.

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.

For What It’s Worth, It’s Never Too Late To Be Whoever You Want To Be.

When A Girl Feels That She’s Perfectly Groomed And Dressed She Can Forget That Part Of Her. That’s Charm

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.

Women Are Necessarily Capable Of Almost Anything In Their Struggle For Survival And Can Scarcely Be Convicted Of Such Man-made Crimes As “cruelty.

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.

I'm Inclined To Reserve All Judgments, A Habit That Has Opened Up Many Curious Natures To Me And Also Made Me The Victim Of Not A Few Veteran Bores.

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

Human Sympathy Has Its Limits.

"if It Wasn’t For The Mist We Could See Your Home Across The Bay," Said Gatsby. "you Always Have A Green Light That Burns At The End Of Your Dock." Daisy Put Her Arm Through His Abruptly But He Seemed Absorbed In What He Had Just Said. Possibly It Had Occurred To Him That The Colossal Significance Of That Light Had Now Vanished Forever. Compared To The Great Distance That Had Separated Him From Daisy It Had Seemed Very Near To Him, Almost Touching Her. It Had Seemed As Close As A Star To The Moon. Now It Was Again A Green Light On A Dock. His Count Of Enchanted Things Had Diminished By One.

I Had Traded The Fight Against Love For The Fight Against Loneliness, The Fight Against Life For The Fight Against Death.

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Galileo Galilei

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