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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.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Of Course All Life

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

Then Wear The Gold Hat, If That Will Move Her; If You Can Bounce High, Bounce For Her Too, Till She Cry "lover, Gold-hatted, High-bouncing Lover, I Must Have You!

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.

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And After Reading Thoreau I Felt How Much I Have Lost By Leaving Nature Out Of My Life.

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Have A Drink Tom And Then You Won't Feel So Foolish To Yourself.

Every Author Ought To Write Every Book As If He Were Going To Be Beheaded The Day He Finished It.

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The Notion Of Sitting Down And Conjuring Up, Not Only Words In Which To Clothe Thoughts But Thoughts Worthy Of Being Clothed--the Whole Thing Was Absurdly Beyond His Desires.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I'm Restless. My Whole Generation Is Restless. I'm Sick Of A System Where The Richest Man Gets The Most Beautiful Girl If He Wants Her, Where The Artist Without An Income Has To Sell His Talents To A Button Manufacturer. Even If I Had No Talents I'd Not Be Content To Work Ten Years, Condemned Either To Celibacy Or A Furtive Indulgence, To Give Some Man's Son An Automobile.

People Invariably Chose Inimitable People To Imitate.

At The Enchanted Metropolitan Twilight I Felt A Haunting Loneliness Sometimes, And Felt It In Others -- Poor Young Clerks Who Loitered In Front Of Windows Waiting Until It Was Time For A Solitary Restaurant Dinner -- Young Clerks In The Dusk, Wasting The Most Poignant Moments Of Night And Life.

Their Lips Brushed Like Young Wild Flowers In The Wind.

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 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.

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Robert Benchley

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