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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.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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They Always Believe That

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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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.

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Long Afterward Amory Thought Of Sophomore Spring As The Happiest Time Of His Life. His Ideas Were In Tune With Life As He Found It; He Wanted No More Than To Drift And Dream And Enjoy A Dozen New-found Friendships Through The April Afternoons.

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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.

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.

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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Who Would Not Be Pleased At Carrying Lamps Helpfully Through The Darkness?

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But His Heart Was In A Constant, Turbulent Riot.

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

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

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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

Great Gatsby Love

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.

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.

Blessed Are The Dead That The Rain Falls On.

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

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.

The Bar Is In Full Swing, And Floating Rounds Of Cocktails Permeate The Garden Outside, Until The Air Is Alivewith Chatter And Laughter, And Casual Innuendo And Introductions Forgotten On The Spot, And Enthusiastic Meetings Between Women Who Never Knew Each Other’s Names.

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.

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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.

Beautiful Things Grow To A Certain Height And Then They Fail And Fade Off, Breathing Out Memories As They Decay.

They Were Stars On This Stage, Each Playing To An Audience Of Two.

Never Confuse Activity With Action.

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France Was A Land, England Was A People, But America, Having About It Still That Quality Of The Idea, Was Harder To Utter - It Was The Graves At Shiloh And The Tired, Drawn, Nervous Faces Of Its Great Men, And The Country Boys Dying In The Argonne For A Phrase That Was Empty Before Their Bodies Withered. It Was A Willingness Of The Heart.

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

I Hope You Live A Life You're Proud Of...

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.

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

If You Spend Your Life Sparing People’s Feelings And Feeding Their Vanity, You Get So You Can’t Distinguish What Should Be Respected In Them.

They Were Still In The Happier Stage 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. They Both Seemed To Have Arrived There With An Extraordinary Innocence As Though A Series Of Pure Accidents Had Driven Them Together, So Many Accidents That At Last They Were Forced To Conclude That They Were For Each Other. They Had Arrived With Clean Hands, Or So It Seemed, After No Traffic With The Merely Curious And Clandestine.

He Was So Terrible That He Was No Longer Terrible, Only Dehumanized.

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.

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

There's So Much Spring In The Air- There's So Much Lazy Sweetness In Your Heart.

It Was One Of Those Rare Smiles With A Quality Of Eternal Reassurance In It, That You May Come Across Four Or Five Times In Life.

We Want To Believe. Young Students Try To Believe In Older Authors, Constituents Try To Believe In Their Congressmen, Countries Try To Believe In Their Statesmen, But They Can't. Too Many Voices, Too Much Scattered, Illogical Ill-considered Criticism.

I Hope Something Happens. I'm Restless As The Devil And Have A Horror Of Getting Fat Or Falling In Love And Growing Domestic.

Falling In Love

I'll Drink Your Champagne. I'll Drink Every Drop Of It, I Don't Care If It Kills Me.

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.

People Invariably Chose Inimitable People To Imitate.

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

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

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

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

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.

Nothing Is As Obnoxious As Other People's Luck.

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

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.

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.

The Ability To Hold Two Competing Thoughts In One's Mind And Still Be Able To Function Is The Mark Of A Superior Mind

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.

I Am Tired Of Knowing Nothing And Being Reminded Of It All The Time.

Knowing Nothing

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.

No Grand Idea Was Ever Born In A Conference, But A Lot Of Foolish Ideas Have Died There.

He Hadn’t Once Ceased Looking At Daisy, And I Think He Revalued Everything In His House According To The Measure Of Response It Drew From Her Well-loved Eyes. Sometimes, Too, He Stared Around At His Possessions In A Dazed Way, As Though In Her Actual And Astounding Presence None Of It Was Any Longer Real.

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

I Was Too Absorbed To Be Responsive

And He Could Not Tell Why The Struggle Was Worthwhile, Why He Had Determined To Use 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.

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

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William Lyon Phelps

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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