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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.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Early Twenties When

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

Everything That Begins, Begins With Blood.

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.

I Was Perhaps An Egotist In Youth, But I Soon Found It Made Me Morbid To Think Too Much About Myself

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

I've Been Drunk For About A Week Now, And I Thought It Might Sober Me Up To Sit In A Library.

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.

I’m Thirty,” I Said. “i’m Five Years Too Old To Lie To Myself And Call It Honor

If I Knew Words Enough, I Could Write The Longest Love Letter In The World And Never Get Tired

When He Buys His Ties He Has To Ask If Gin Will Make Them Run.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Character Is Plot, Plot Is Character.

There Was One Of His Lonelinesses Coming, One Of Those Times When He Walked The Streets Or Sat, Aimless And Depressed, Biting A Pencil At His Desk. It Was A Self-absorption With No Comfort, A Demand For Expression With No Outlet, A Sense Of Time Rushing By, Ceaselessly And Wastefully - Assuaged Only By That Conviction That There Was Nothing To Waste, Because All Efforts And Attainments Were Equally Valueless.

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

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

The Only Way To Increase It Is To Cultivate Your Own Garden. And The Only Thing That Will Help You Is Poetry, Which Is The Most Concentrated Form Of Style.... I Don't Care How Clever The Other Professor Is, One Can't Raise A Discussion Of Modern Prose To Anything Above Tea-table Level.

A Sudden Gust Of Rain Blew Over Them And Then Another - As If Small Liquid Clouds Were Bouncing Along The Land. Lightning Entered The Sea Far Off And The Air Blew Full Of Crackling Thunder. The Table Cloths Blew Around The Pillars. They Blew And Blew And Blew. The Flags Twisted Around The Red Chairs Like Live Things, The Banners Were Ragged, The Corners Of The Table Tore Off Through The Burbling Billowing Ends Of The Cloths.

Exploration Was For Those With A Measure Of Peasant Blood, Those With Big Thighs And Thick Ankles Who Could Take Punishment As They Took Bread And Salt, On Every Inch Of Flesh And Spirit.

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

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

All That Kept Her From Breaking Was That It Was Not An Image Of Strength That Was Leaving Her; She Would Be Just As Strong Without Him.

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.

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.

I've Noticed That The Children Of Other Nations Always Seem Precocious. That's Because The Strange Manners Of Their Elders Have Caught Our Attention Most And The Children Echo Those Manners Enough To Seem Like Their Parents.

Eighteen Might Look At Thirty-four Through A Rising Mist Of Adolescence, But Twenty-two Would See Thirty-eight With Discerning Clarity.

What'll We Do With Ourselves This Afternoon,' Cried Daisy, 'and The Day After That, And The Next Thirty Years?' 'don't Be Morbid,' Jordan Said. 'life Starts All Over Again When It Gets Crisp In The Fall.' 'but It's So Hot,' Insisted Daisy, On The Verge Of Tears, 'and Everything's So Confused. Let's All Go To Town!

Fairies: Nature's Attempt To Get Rid Of Soft Boys By Sterilizing Them.

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.

It Is Not Necessarily Poverty Of Spirit That Makes A Woman Surround Herself With Life - It Can Be A Superabundance Of Interest.

Tender Is The Night

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Baseball Is A Game Played By Idiots For Morons.

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.

I Like People And I Like Them To Like Me, But I Wear My Heart Where God Put It, On The Inside.

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.

Most People Think Everybody Feels About Them Much More Violently Than They Actually Do; They Think Other People's Opinions Of Them Swing Through Great Arcs Of Approval Or Disapproval.

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

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

I've Got An Adjective That Just Fits You.

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

He Looked At Her And For A Moment She Lived In The Bright Blue Worlds Of His Eyes, Eagerly And Confidently.

Stahr's Eyes And Kathleen's Met And Tangled. For An Instant They Made Love As No One Ever Dares To Do After. Their Glance Was Slower Than An Embrace, More Urgent Than A Call.

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 May Turn Out An Intellectual, But I'll Never Write Anything But Mediocre Poetry.

It Was Testimony To The Romantic Speculation He Inspired That There Were Whispers About Him From Those Who Had Found Little That It Was Necessary To Whisper About In This World.

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

When I'm With You, I Don't Breathe Quite Right.

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. From The Western Half Of The Sky The Sun Was Shying Little Golden Disks At The Sea--if You Gazed Intently Enough You Could See Them Skip From Wave Tip To Wave Tip Until They Joined A Broad Collar Of Golden Coin That Was Collecting Half A Mile Out And Would Eventually Be A Dazzling Sunset.

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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.

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

Experience Is The Name So Many People Give To Their Mistakes.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

When A Man Is Tired Of Life On His 21st Birthday It Indicates That He Is Rather Tired Of Something In Himself.

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

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.

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

Yet High Over The City Our Line Of Yellow Windows Must Have Contributed Their Share Of Human Secrecy To The Casual Watcher In The Darkening Streets, And I Was Him Too, Looking Up And Wondering. I Was Within And Without, Simultaneously Enchanted And Repelled By The Inexhaustible Variety Of Life.

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.

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

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

Great Gatsby Love

What You Have Felt And Thought Will By Itself Invent A New Style, So That When People Talk About Style They Are Always A Little Astonished At The Newness Of It, Because They Think That It Is Only Style That They Are Talking About, When What They Are Talking About Is The Attempt To Express A New Idea With Such Force That It Will Have The Originality Of The Thought.it Is An Awfully Lonesome Business, And, As You Know, I Never Wanted You To Go Into It, But If You Are Going Into It At All, I Want You To Go Into It Knowing The Sort Of Things That Took Me Years To Learn.

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

Tender Is The Night

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.

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

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.

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

There Are No Second Acts In American Lives.

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

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

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

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

Great Gatsby American Dream

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.

She Looked At Me And Laughed Pointlessly. Then She Flounced Over To The Dog, Kissed It With Ecstasy, And Swept Into The Kitchen, Implying That A Dozen Chefs Awaited Her Orders There.

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.

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

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 Love Her And That's The Beginning And End Of Everything.

Nancy Had A Mouth Like A Remembered Kiss.

When The Lightning Strikes One Of Us, It Strikes Both

Most Affectations Conceal Something Eventually, Even Though They Don't In The Beginning.

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.

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

A Sense Of Responsibility Would Spoil Her. She's Too Pretty.

Sense Of Responsibility

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

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.

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.

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

He Dispensed Starlight To Casual Moths.

I Care Not Who Hoes The Lettuce Of My Country If I Can Eat The Salad!

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

Punctuation Marks

It Was About Then [1920] That I Wrote A Line Which Certain People Will Not Let Me Forget: "she Was A Faded But Still Lovely Woman Of Twenty-seven."

I Was A Little Shocked At The Elaborateness Of The Lie.

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.

The Cracked Plate Has To Be Retained In The Pantry, Has To Be Kept In Service As A Household Necessity. It Can Never Be Warmed On The Stove Nor Shuffled With The Other Plates In The Dishpan; It Will Not Be Brought Out For Company But It Will Do To Hold Crackers Late At Night Or To Go Into The Ice-box With The Left Overs.

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

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

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

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.

Unloved Women Have No Biographies-- They Have Histories

...i Think He Revalued Everything In His House According To The Measure Of Response It Drew From Her Well-loved Eyes.

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.

He's A Bootlegger....one Time He Killed A Man Who Found Out That He Was Nephew To Von Hindenburg And Second Cousin To The Devil.

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

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.

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.

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

Great Gatsby Love

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Transition From Libertine To Prig Was So Complete.

She Smiled, A Moving Childish Smile That Was Like All The Lost Youth In The World.

She Admired Him; She Was Used To Clutching Her Hands Together In His Wake And Heaving Audible Sighs.

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.

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

Great Gatsby American Dream

It's A Mining Town In Lotus Land.

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.

I Didn't Realize It, But The Days Came Along One After Another, And Then Two Years Were Gone, And Everything Was Gone, And I Was Gone.

The World Is Always Curious, And People Become Valuable Merely For Their Inaccessibility

First You Take A Drink, Then The Drink Takes A Drink, Then The Drink Takes You.

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.

...the Test Of A First-rate Intelligence Is The Ability To Hold Two Opposed Ideas In The Mind At The Same Time, And Still Retain The Ability To Function. One Should, For Example, Be Able To See That Things Are Hopeless And Yet Be Determined To Make Them Otherwise. This Philosophy Fitted On To My Early Adult Life, When I Saw The Improbable, The Implausible, Often The "impossible," Come True.

Positive Thinking

Positive Attitude

An Unread Book Is Just A Block Of Paper.

Murder Your Darlings.

We Haven’t Met For Many Years, Said Daisy, Her Voice As Matter-of-fact As It Could Ever Be. "five Years Next November." The Automatic Quality Set Us All Back At Least Another Minute.

I Want To Give A Really Bad Party. I Mean It. I Want To Give A Party Where There’s A Brawl And Seductions And People Going Home With Their Feelings Hurt And Women Passed Out In The Cabinet De Toilette. You Wait And See.

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.

So We Beat On, Boats Against The Current, Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Past.

Later She Remembered All The Hours Of The Afternoon As Happy -- One Of Those Uneventful Times That Seem At The Moment Only A Link Between Past And Future Pleasure, But Turn Out To Have Been The Pleasure Itself.

We Must Leave This Terrifying Place To-morrow And Go Searching For Sunshine.

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.

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.

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

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.

Well, You Never Knew Exactly How Much Space You Occupied In People's Lives.

Tender Is The Night

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.

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

Tender Is The Night

"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."

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.

Well, You Never Knew Exactly How Much Space You Occupied In People's Lives. Yet From This Fog His Affection Emerged--the Best Contacts Are When One Knows The Obstacles And Still Wants To Preserve A Relation.

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.

He Could Transform The Barest Incident Into A Thing Of Curve And Contour.

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.

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

His Youth Seemed Never So Vanished As Now In The Contrast Between The Utter Loneliness Of This Visit And That Riotous, Joyful Party Of Four Years Before. Things That Had Been The Merest Commonplaces Of His Life Then, Deep Sleep, The Sense Of Beauty Around Him, All Desire, Had Flown Away And The Gaps They Left Were Filled Only With The Great Listlessness Of His Disillusion.

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

Gatsby Turned Out All Right At The End; It Is What Preyed On Gatsby, What Foul Dust Floated In The Wake Of His Dreams That Temporarily Closed Out My Interest In The Abortive Sorrows And Short-winded Elations Of Men.

Englishmen Must Have An Island.

I Carry The Place Around The World In My Heart But Sometimes I Try To Shake It Off In My Dreams

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

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.

The Rich Are Different From Us.

The Extraordinary Thing Is Not That People In A Lifetime Turn Out Worse Or Better Than We Had Prophesied; Particularly In America That Is To Be Expected. The Extraordinary Thing Is How People Keep Their Levels, Fulfill Their Promises, Seem Actually Buoyed Up By An Inevitable Destiny.

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.

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

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

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.

Americans, While Occasionally Willing To Be Serfs, Have Always Been Obstinate About Being Peasantry.

Great Gatsby American Dream

Great Gatsby Book

Great Gatsby Important

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.

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

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

Talk English To Me, Tommy. Parlez Francais Avec Moi, Nicole. But The Meanings Are Different-- In French You Can Be Heroic And Gallant With Dignity, And You Know It. But In English You Can't Be Heroic And Gallant Without Being A Little Absurd, And You Know That Too. That Gives Me An Advantage.

To Most Women Art Is A Form Of Scandal.

There Are All Kinds Of Love In This World But Never The Same Love Twice.

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.

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.

Poetry Is Either Something That Lives Like Fire Inside You -- Like Music To The Musician Or Marxism To The Communist -- Or Else It Is Nothing, An Empty, Formalized Bore Around Which Pedants Can Endlessly Drone Their Notes And Explanations.

Vitality Shows In Not Only The Ability To Persist But The Ability To Start Over.

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

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.

The Hangover Became A Part Of The Day As Well Allowed-for As The Spanish Siesta.

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

People Invariably Chose Inimitable People To Imitate.

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.

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

It Is In The Twenties That The Actual Momentum Of Life Begins To Slacken, And It Is A Simple Soul Indeed To Whom As Many Things Are As Significant And Meaningful At Thirty As At Ten Years Before. At Thirty An Organ-grinder Is A More Or Less A Moth Eaten Man Who Grinds An Organ - And Once He Was An Organ-grinder! The Unmistakable Stigma Of Humanity Touches All Those Impersonal And Beautiful Things That Only Youth Ever Grasps In Their Impersonal Glory.

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

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Franklin P. Adams

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