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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.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

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This Is A Valley

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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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.

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

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

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Murder Your Darlings.

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

Sense Of Responsibility

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Action Is Character.

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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.

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I Suppose The Latest Thing Is To Sit Back And Let Mr. Nobody From Nowhere Make Love To Your Wife.

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I Suppose Books Mean More Than People To Me Anyway

We All Have Souls Of Different Ages

Good Manners Are An Admission That Everybody Is So Tender That They Have To Be Handled With Gloves. Now, Human Respect—you Don't Call A Man A Coward Or A Liar Lightly, But 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.

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

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

He Was Figuratively Following Along Beside Her As She Walked The Fence, Ready To Catch Her If She Should Fall.

I Must Hold In Balance The Sense Of The Futility Of Effort And The Sense Of The Necessity To Struggle; The Conviction Of The Inevitability Of Failure And Still The Determination To 'succeed'-and, More Than These, The Contradiction Between The Dead Hand Of The Past And The High Intentions Of The Future. If I Could Do This Through The Common Ills-domestic, Professional And Personal-then The Ego Would Continue As An Arrow Shot From Nothingness To Nothingness With Such Force That Only Gravity Would Bring It To Earth At Last.

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It's Just Because I Love The Past That I Want This House To Look Back On Its Glamourous Moment Of Youth And Beauty, And I Want Its Stairs To Creak As If To The Footsteps Of Women With Hoop Skirts And Men In Boots And Spurs. But They've Made It Into A Blondined, Rouged-up Old Woman Of Sixty.

To Most Women Art Is A Form Of Scandal.

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

I Felt A Haunting Loneliness Sometimes, And Felt It In Others--young Clerks In The Dusk, Wasting The Most Poignant Moments Of Night And Life.

The Unwelcome November Rain Had Perversely Stolen The Day's Last Hour And Pawned It With That Ancient Fence, The Night.

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Baseball Is A Game Played By Idiots For Morons.

The Officer Looked At Daisy While She Was Speaking, In A Way That Every Young Girl Wants To Be Looked At Sometime, And Because It Seemed Romantic To Me I Have Remembered The Incident Ever Since.

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

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You Remind Me Of A Smoked Cigarette.

Sometimes I Wish I'd Been An Englishman; American Life Is So Damned Dumb And Stupid And Healthy

One Girl Can Be Pretty - But A Dozen Are Only A Chorus.

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

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

I’m Not Sure What I’ll Do, But— Well, I Want To Go Places And See People. I Want My Mind To Grow. I Want To Live Where Things Happen On A Big Scale.

A Writer Wastes Nothing.

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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.

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

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.

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He Wanted People To Like His Mind Again-after Awhile It Might Be Such A Nice Place In Which To Live.

She Confused Him And Hindered The Flow Of His Ideas. Self-expression Had Never Seemed At Once So Desirable And So Impossible.

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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

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

New York Had All The Iridescence Of The Beginning Of The World.

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

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An Artist Is Someone Who Can Hold Two Opposing Viewpoints And Still Remain Fully Functional.

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In His Blue Gardens Men And Girls Came And Went Like Moths Among The Whisperings And The Champagne And The Stars.

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

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Better Let It All Alone In The Depths Of Her Heart And The Depths Of The Sea.

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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 Die Violently Instead Of Fading Out Sentimentally.

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.

But You Can Love More Than Just One Person, Can't You?

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.

Life Starts All Over Again When It Gets Crisp In The Fall.

After All, Life Hasn't Much To Offer Except Youth, And I Suppose For Older People, The Love Of Youth In Others.

Scratch A Yale Man With Both Hands And You'll Be Lucky To Find A Coast-guard. Usually You Find Nothing At All.

Her Beautiful Eyes And Lips Were Very Grave As She Made Her Choice, And Anthony Thought Again How Naive Was Her Every Gesture; She Took All The Things Of Life For Hers To Choose From And Apportion, As Though She Were Continually Picking Out Presents For Herself From An Inexhaustible Counter.

He Had Been Full Of The Idea So Long, Dreamed It Right Through To The End, Waited With His Teeth Set, So To Speak, At An Inconceivable Pitch Of Intensity. Now, In The Reaction, He Was Running Down Like An Overwound Clock.

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

You Know I'm Old In Some Ways-in Others-well, I'm Just A Little Girl. I Like Sunshine And Pretty Things And Cheerfulness-and I Dread Responsibility.

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

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

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Positive Thinking

Positive Attitude

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

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.

Life Is Progressive, No Matter What Our Intentions.

He Felt Married To Her, That Was All.

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.

She Was Beautiful - But Especially She Was Without Mercy.

I Am Too Much A Moralist At Heart, And Really Want To Preach At People In Some Acceptable Form, Rather Than Entertain Them.

Writing Is Eternal, For Therein The Dead Heart Liveth, The Clay-cold Tongue Is Eloquent, And The Quick Eye Of The Reader Is Cleared By The Reed Of The Scribe. As A Fossil In The Rock, Or A Coin In The Mortar Of A Ruin, So The Symbolled Thoughts Tell Of A Departed Soul: The Plastic Hand Hath Its Witness In A Statue, And Exactitude Of Vision In A Picture, And So, The Mind, That Was Among Us, In Its Writings Is Embalmed.

Don't Say 'wife.' I'm Your Mistress. Wife's Such An Ugly Word. Your 'permanent Mistress' Is So Much More Tangible And Desirable… .

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 Guess I'm The Black Death,' He Said Slowly. 'i Don't Seem To Bring People Happiness Any More.

I Was Too Absorbed To Be Responsive

You're A Rotten Driver,' I Protested. 'either You Ought To Be More Careful Or You Oughtn't To Drive At All.' 'i Am Careful.' 'no, You're Not.' 'well, Other People Are,' She Said Lightly. 'what's That Got To Do With It?' 'they'll Keep Out Of My Way,' She Insisted. 'it Takes Two To Make An Accident.' 'suppose You Met Somebody Just As Careless As Yourself.' 'i Hope I Never Will,' She Answered. 'i Hate Careless People. That's Why I Like You.' Her Grey, Sun-strained Eyes Stared Straight Ahead, But She Had Deliberately Shifted Our Relations, And For A Moment I Thought I Loved Her.

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 Are The Loveliest Thing That I Have Ever Known.

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

He Dispensed Starlight To Casual Moths.

She Knew Few Words And Believed In None.

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

I Won’t Kiss You. It Might Get To Be A Habit And I Can’t Get Rid Of Habits.

Never Confuse A Single Defeat With A Final Defeat.

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.

Begin With An Individual, And Before You Know It You Find That You Have Created A Type; Begin With A Type, And You Find That You Have Created - Nothing.

Interested, I Mean, With That Intense Personal Interest To Which Every One Has Some Vague Right At The End

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

"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."

People Disappeared, Reappeared, Made Plans To Go Somewhere, And Then Lost Each Other, Searched For Each Other, Found Each Other A Few Feet Away.

Great Gatsby Book

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Christina Milian

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