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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.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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My Latest Tendency Is

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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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.

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What Was The Use Of Doing Great Things If I Could Have A Better Time Telling Her What I Was Going To Do?

Either You Think, Or Else Others Have To Think For You And Take Power From You, Pervert And Discipline Your Natural Tastes, Civilize And Sterilize You.

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

The Lights Grow Brighter As The Earth Lurches Away From The Sun.

It's All Life Is. Just Going 'round Kissing People.

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Laughter Is Easier Minute By Minute, Spilled With Prodigality, Tipped Out At A Cheerful Word.

I Have Never Wished There Was A God To Call On- I Have Often Wished There Was A God To Thank.

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.

The Invitation To Miss Myra St. Claire's Bobbing Party Spent The Morning In His Coat Pocket, Where It Had An Intense Physical Affair With A Dusty Piece Of Peanut Brittle.

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

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.

If Personality Is An Unbroken Series Of Successful Gestures, Then There Was Something Gorgeous About Him, Some Heightened Sensitivity To The Promises Of Life, As If He Were Related To One Of Those Intricate Machines That Registered Earthquakes Ten Thousand Miles Away.

My Imagination Persisted In Sticking Horrors Into The Dark- So I Stuck My Imagination Into The Dark Instead, And Let It Look Out At Me.

They Weren't Happy, And Neither Of Them Had Touched The Chicken Or The Ale---and Yet They Weren't Unhappy Either. There Was An Unmistakable Air Of Natural Intimacy About The Picture And Anybody Would Have Said That They Were Conspiring Together.

His Heart Beat Faster And Faster As Daisy’s White Face Came Up To His Own. 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. So He Waited, Listening For A Moment Longer To The Tuning Fork That Had Been Struck Upon A Star. Then He Kissed Her. At His Lips’ Touch She Blossomed Like A Flower And The Incarnation Was Complete.

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People Invariably Chose Inimitable People To Imitate.

But They Were Frightened At His Survivant Will, Once A Will To Live, Now Become A Will To Die.

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

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.

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

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

Situations In 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.

A Classic,' Suggested Anthony, 'is A Successful Book That Has Survived The Reaction Of The Next Period Or Generation. Then It's Safe, Like A Style In Architecture Or Furniture. It's Acquired A Picturesque Dignity To Take The Place Of Its Fashion.

Nancy Had A Mouth Like A Remembered Kiss.

Unloved Women Have No Biographies-- They Have Histories

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

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.

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

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

Tender Is The Night

My God,' He Gasped, 'you're Fun To Kiss.

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

His Hand Took Hold Of Hers, And As She Said Something Low In His Ear He Turned Toward Her With A Rush Of Emotion. I Think That Voice Held Him Most, With Its Fluctuating, Feverish Warmth, Because It Couldn’t Be Over-dreamed —that Voice Was A Deathless Song.

You Said A Bad Driver Was Only Safe Until She Met Another Bad Driver? Well, I Met Another Bad Driver, Didn't I? I Mean It Was Careless Of Me To Makes Such A Wrong Guess. I Thought You Were Rather An Honest, Straightforward Person I Thought It Was Your Secret Pride." "i'm Thirty," I Said. "i'm Five Years Too Old To Lie To Myself And Call It Honor." She Didn't Answer. Angry, And Half In Love With Her, And Tremendously Sorry, I Turned Away.

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.

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

There’s A Writer For You,” He Said. “knows Everything And At The Same Time He Knows Nothing.” [narrator]it Was My First Inkling That He Was A Writer. And While I Like Writers—because If You Ask A Writer Anything You Usually Get An Answer—still It Belittled Him In My Eyes. 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. It’s Like Actors, Who Try So Pathetically Not To Look In Mirrors. Who Lean Backward Trying—only To See Their Faces In The Reflecting Chandeliers.

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.

The World, As A Rule, Does Not Live On Beaches And In Country Clubs.

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

Punctuation Marks

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

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.

You Once Liked Me, Didn't You?, He Asked. Liked You- I Loved You. Everybody Loved You. You Could've Had Anybody You Wanted For The Asking.

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.

There Are No Second Acts In American Lives.

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.

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

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

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.

Sometimes It Is Harder To Deprive Oneself Of A Pain Than Of A Pleasure.

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.

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!

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.

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