Background Image

...

You Know, You’re A Little Complicated After All.” “oh No,” She Assured Him Hastily. “no, I’m Not Really - I’m Just A - I’m Just A Whole Lot Of Different Simple People.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Know, You’re A

F. Scott Fitzgerald

...

You Know, You’re A Little Complicated After All.” “oh No,” She Assured Him Hastily. “no, I’m Not Really - I’m Just A - I’m Just A Whole Lot Of Different Simple People.

Views: 13890

Topic

More From F. Scott Fitzgerald

I Have Lived Hard And Ruined The Essential Innocence [sic] In Myself That Could Make It That Possible [sic], And The Fact That I Have Abused Liquor Is Something To Be Paid For With Suffering And Death Perhaps But Not Renunciation.

Suffering And Death

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

It Takes Two To Make An Accident.

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

The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get - Children.

Great Gatsby Book

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.

Mostly, We Authors Must Repeat Ourselves - That's The Truth. We Have Two Or Three Great And Moving Experiences In Our Lives - Experiences So Great And Moving That It Doesn't Seem At The Time Anyone Else Has Been So Caught Up And So Pounded And Dazzled And Astonished And Beaten And Broken And Rescued And Illuminated And Rewarded And Humbled In Just That Way Ever Before. Then We Learn Our Trade, Well Or Less Well, And We Tell Our Two Or Three Stories - Each Time In A New Disguise - Maybe Ten Times, Maybe A Hundred, As Long As People Will Listen.

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

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.

In The Morning You Were Never Violently Sorry-- You Made No Resolutions, But If You Had Overdone It And Your Heart Was Slightly Out Of Order, You Went On The Wagon For A Few Days Without Saying Anything About It, And Waited Until An Accumulation Of Nervous Boredom Projected You Into Another Party.

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

Optimism Is The Content Of Small Men In High Places.

That's The Whole Burden Of This Novel - The Loss Of Those Illusions That Give Such Color To The World That You Don't Care Whether Things Are True Or False As Long As They Partake Of The Magical Glory.

It Understood You Just As Far As You Wanted To Be Understood, Believed In You As You Would Like To Believe In Yourself, And Assured You That It Had Precisely The Impression Of You That, At Your Best, You Hoped To Convey.

Great Gatsby Book

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.

Something Was Making Him Nibble At The Edge Of Stale Ideas As If His Sturdy Physical Egotism No Longer Nourished His Peremptory Heart.

Speech Is An Arrangement Of Notes That Will Never Be Played Again.

Want Any Of This Stuff? Jordan?... Nick?" I Didn't Answer. Nick?" He Asked Again. What?" Want Any?" No... I Just Remembered That Today's My Birthday." I Was Thirty. Before Me Stretched The Portentous, Menacing Road Of A New Decade.

Nicole's World Had Fallen To Pieces, But It Was Only A Flimsy And Scarcely Created World; Beneath It Her Emotions And Instincts Fought On.

And, After Boasting This Way Of My Tolerance, I Come To The Admission That It Has A Limit. Conduct May Be Founded On The Hard Rock Or The Wet Marshes, But After A Certain Point I Don’t Care What It’s Founded On. When I Came Back From The East Last Autumn I Felt That I Wanted The World To Be In Uniform And At A Sort Of Moral Attention Forever; I Wanted No More Riotous Excursions With Privileged Glimpses Into The Human Heart. Only Gatsby, The Man Who Gives His Name To This Book, Was Exempt From My Reaction—gatsby, Who Represented Everything For Which I Have An Unaffected Scorn.

I Noticed That She Wore Her Evening Dress, All Her Dresses, Like Sports Clothes-there Was A Jauntiness About Her Movements As If She Had First Learned To Walk Upon A Golf Course On Clean, Crisp, Mornings.

His Was A Great Sin Who First Invented Consciousness. Let Us Lose It For A Few Hours.

The Idea That To Make A Man Work You've Got To Hold Gold In Front Of His Eyes Is A Growth, Not An Axiom. We've Done That For So Long That We've Forgotten There's Any Other Way.

Ah," She Cried, "you Look So Cool." Their Eyes Met, And They Stared Together At Each Other, Alone In Space. With An Effort She Glanced Down At The Table. You Always Look So Cool," She Repeated. She Had Told Him That She Loved Him, And Tom Buchanan Saw.

I'm Merely Trying To Give You The Sort Of Argument That Would Appeal To Your Intelligence.

The Growth Of Intimacy Is Like That. First One Gives Off His Best Picture, The Bright And Finished Product Mended With Bluff And Falsehood And Humour. Then More Details Are Required And One Paints A Second Portrait, And A Third – Before Long The Best Lines Cancel Out – And The Secret Is Exposed At Last; The Planes Of The Pictures Have Intermingled And Given Us Away, And Though We Paint And Paint We Can No Longer Sell A Picture. We Must Be Satisfied With Hoping That Such Fatuous Accounts Of Ourselves As We Make To Our Wives And Children And Business Associates Are Accepted As True

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.

I Learned A Little Of Beauty - Enough To Know That It Had Nothing To Do With Truth.

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.

That Voice Was A Deathless Song.

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

They're A Rotten Crowd', I Shouted Across The Lawn. 'you're Worth The Whole Damn Bunch Put Together.

...their Eyes Are Full Of Kindness As Each Feels The Full Effect Of Novelty After A Short Separation. They Are Drawing A Relaxation From Each Other's Presence, A New Serenity.

She Saw Him The First Day On Board, And Then Her Heart Sank Into Her Shoes As She Realized At Last How Much She Wanted Him. No Matter What His Past Was, No Matter What He Had Done. Which Was Not To Say That She Would Ever Let Him Know, But Only That He Moved Her Chemically More Than Anyone She Had Ever Met, That All Other Men Seemed Pale Beside Him.

She Was A Dark, Unenduring Little Flower - Yet He Thought He Detected In Her Some Quality Of Spiritual Reticence, Of Strength Drawn From Her Passive Acceptance Of All Things. In This He Was Mistaken.

Once I Thought That Lake Forest Was The Most Glamorous Place In The World. Maybe It Was.

The Best Of America Drifts To Paris. The American In Paris Is The Best American.

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

Travel, Which Had Once Charmed Him, Seemed, At Length, Unendurable, A Business Of Color Without Substance, A Phantom Chase After His Own Dream's Shadow.

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.

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.

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.

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

Egyptian Proverb: The Worst Things: To Be In Bed And Sleep Not, To Want For One Who Comes Not, To Try To Please And Please Not.

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

She Laughed With Thrilling Scorn. "sophisticated-god, I'm Sophisticated!

The Mind Of A Little Child Is Fascinating, For It Looks On Old Things With New Eyes-but At About Twelve This Changes. The Adolescent Offers Nothing, Can Do Nothing, Say Nothing That The Adult Cannot Do Better.

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

Great Gatsby Love

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

Once We Were One Person, And Always It Will Be A Little That Way.

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

She Was Beautiful, But Not Like Those Girls In The Magazines. She Was Beautiful, For The Way She Thought. She Was Beautiful, For The Sparkle In Her Eyes When She Talked About Something She Loved. She Was Beautiful, For Her Ability To Make Other People Smile, Even If She Was Sad. No, She Wasn't Beautiful For Something As Temporary As Her Looks. She Was Beautiful, Deep Down To Her Soul. She Is Beautiful.

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.

A Love Affair Is Like A Short Story--it Has A Beginning, A Middle, And An End. The Beginning Was Easy, The Middle Might Drag, Invaded By Commonplace, But The End, Instead Of Being Decisive And Well Knit With That Element Of Revelatory Surprise As A Well-written Story Should Be, It Usually Dissipated In A Succession Of Messy And Humiliating Anticlimaxes.

So There Was Not An "i" Anymore - Not A Basis On Which I Could Organize My Self-respect - Save My Limitless Capacity For Toil That It Seemed I Possessed No More.

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.

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.

The Afternoon Had Made Them Tranquil For A While, As If To Give Them A Deep Memory For The Long Parting The Next Day Promised.

How Strange To Have Failed As A Social Creature—even Criminals Do Not Fail That Way—they Are The Law's "loyal Opposition," So To Speak. But The Insane Are Always Mere Guests On Earth, Eternal Strangers Carrying Around Broken Decalogues That They Cannot Read.

Amory Thought How It Was Only The Past That Seemed Strange And Unbelievable.

For A Moment The Last Sunshine Fell With Romantic Affection Upon Her Glowing Face; Her Voice Compelled Me Forward Breathlessly As I Listened - Then The Glow Faded, Each Light Deserting Her With Lingering Regret, Like Children Leaving A Pleasant Street At Dusk.

But His Heart Was In A Constant, Turbulent Riot.

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.

He Dispensed Starlight To Casual Moths.

"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."

The Words Seemed To Bite Physically Into Gatsby.

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.

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

Sense Of Responsibility

It Was Always The Becoming He Dreamed Of, Never The Being.

Intelligence Is A Mere Instrument Of Circumstances.

Those Days Are Over. I Have To Be Won All Over Again Every Time You See Me.

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 Is Youth’s Felicity As Well As Its Insufficiency That It Can Never Live In The Present, But Must Always Be Measuring Up The Day Against Its Own Radiantly Imagined Future

Live In The Present

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.

And Yale Is November, Crisp And Energetic.

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.

He Used To Think That He Wanted To Be Good, He Wanted To Be Kind, He Wanted To Be Brave And Wise, But It Was All Pretty Difficult. He Wanted To Be Loved, Too, If He Could Fit It In.

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

Great Gatsby Love

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

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

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

At Any Rate, Let Us Love For A While, For A Year Or So, You And Me. That's A Form Of Divine Drunkenness That We Can All Try. There Are Only Diamonds In The Whole World, Diamonds And Perhaps The Shabby Gift Of Disillusion.

In Crowded Rooms They Would Form Words With Their Lips For Each Other's Eyes

There's A Right Way Of Doing Things And A Wrong Way. If You've Made Up Your Mind To Be Different From Everybody Else, I Don't Suppose I Can Stop You, But I Really Don't Think It's Very Considerate.

Any Person With Any Imagination Is Bound To Be Afraid.

I Don't Think He Was Ever Happy Unless Someone Was In Love With Him, Responding To Him Like Filings To A Magnet, Helping Him To Explain Himself, Promising Him Something. What It Was I Do Not Know. Perhaps They Promised That There Would Always Be Women In The World Who Would Spend Their Brightest, Freshest, Rarest Hours To Nurse And Protect That Superiority He Cherished In His Heart.

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.

Life Is Essentially A Cheat And Its Conditions Are Those Of Defeat; The Redeeming Things Are Not Happiness And Pleasure But The Deeper Satisfactions That Come Out Of Struggle.

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

Situations In Life

If All Your Clothes Are Worn To The Same State, It Means You Go Out Too Much.

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.

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.

One Hurries Through, Even Though There's Time; The Past, The Continent, Is Behind; The Future Is The Glowing Mouth In The Side Of The Ship; The Dim, Turbulent Alley Is Too Confusedly The Present.

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

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

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

Dear, Don't Think Of Getting Out Of Bed Yet. I've Always Suspected That Early Rising In Early Life Makes One Nervous.

One Should, For Example, Be Able To See That Things Are Hopeless And Yet Be Determined To Make Them Otherwise.

Now The Standard Cure For One Who Is Sunk Is To Consider Those In Actual Destitution Or Physical Suffering—this Is An All-weather Beatitude For Gloom In General And Fairly Salutary Day-time Advice For Everyone. But At Three O’clock In The Morning, A Forgotten Package Has The Same Tragic Importance As A Death Sentence, And The Cure Doesn’t Work—and In A Real Dark Night Of The Soul It Is Always Three O’clock In The Morning, Day After Day.

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.

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.

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

Her Voice Is Full Of Money.

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.

It Was As If For The Remainder Of His Life He Was Condemned To Carry With Him The Egos Of Certain People, Early Met And Early Loved, And To Be Only As Complete As They Were Complete Themselves. There Was Some Element Of Loneliness Involved--so Easy To Be Loved--so Hard To Love.

We Both Fitted. If Our Corners Were Not Rubbed Off They Were At Least Pulled In. But Deep In Us Both Was Something That Made Us Require More For Happiness. I Didn't Know What I Wanted

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

Life Is So Damned Hard, So Damned Hard... It Just Hurts People And Hurts People, Until Finally It Hurts Them So That They Can't Be Hurt Ever Any More. That's The Last And Worst Thing It Does.

You Know, You’re A Little Complicated After All.” “oh No,” She Assured Him Hastily. “no, I’m Not Really - I’m Just A - I’m Just A Whole Lot Of Different Simple People.

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

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.

Englishmen Must Have An Island.

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

For Awhile After You Quit Keats All Other Poetry Seems To Be Only Whistling Or Humming.

A Writer Wastes Nothing.

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

Trouble Has No Necessary Connection With Discouragement. Discouragement Has A Germ Of Its Own, As Different From Trouble As Arthritis Is Different From A Stiff Joint.

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

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

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

It Was Too Late - Everything Was Too Late. For Years Now He Had Dreamed The World Away, Basing His Decisions Upon Emotions Unstable As Water.

Life Plays The Same Lovely And Agonizing Joke On All Of Us.

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

If You Are Strong Enough, There Are No Precedents.

There Are Only The Pursued, The Pursuing, The Busy And The Tired.

Great Gatsby American Dream

For The Moment I Can Only Cry Out That I Have Lost My Splendid Mirage. Come Back, Come Back, O Glittering And White!

Kiss Me Now, Love Me Now.

She Was Beautiful - But Especially She Was Without Mercy.

He Did Not Understand All He Had Heard, But From His Clandestine Glimpse Into The Privacy Of These Two, With All The World That His Short Experience Could Conceive Of At Their Feet, He Had Gathered That Life For Everybody Was A Struggle, Sometimes Magnificent From A Distance, But Always Difficult And Surprisingly Simple And A Little Sad.

It Was Strange To Have No Self-to Be Like A Little Boy Left Alone In A Big House, Who Knew That Now He Could Do Anything He Wanted To Do, But Found That There Was Nothing That He Wanted To Do.

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.

Marriage Was Created Not To Be A Background But To Need One. Mine Is Going To Be Outstanding. It Can't, Shan't Be The Setting - It's Going To Be The Performance, The Lively, Lovely, Glamorous Performance, And The World Shall Be The Scenery.

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.

Mother Says That Two Souls Are Sometimes Created Together And--and In Love Before They're Born.

As He Took Her Hand She Saw Him Look Her Over From Head To Foot, A Gesture She Recognized And That Made Her Feel At Home, But Gave Her Always A Faint Feeling Of Superiority To Whoever Made It. If Her Person Was Property She Could Exercise Whatever Advantage Was Inherent In Its Ownership.

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

To Most Women Art Is A Form Of Scandal.

Cut Out All These Exclamation Points. An Exclamation Point Is Like Laughing At Your Own Joke.

Blessed Are The Dead That The Rain Falls On.

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

I Wanted No More Riotous Excursions With Privileged Glimpses Into The Human Heart.

Great Gatsby Nick

The Transition From Libertine To Prig Was So Complete.

The Compensation Of A Very Early Success Is A Conviction That Life Is A Romantic Matter. In The Best Sense One Stays Young.

Gatsby Believed In The Green Light, The Orgastic Future That Year By Year Recedes Before Us. It Eluded Us Then, But That's No Matter - To-morrow We Will Run Faster, Stretch Out Our Arms Farther ... And One Fine Morning ---

I Fell In Love With Her Courage, Her Sincerity, And Her Flaming Self Respect. And It's These Things I'd Believe In, Even If The Whole World Indulged In Wild Suspicions That She Wasn't All She Should Be. I Love Her And It Is The Beginning Of Everything.

I Was Haunted Always By My Other Life-my Drab Room In The Bronx, My Square Foot Of The Subway, My Fixation Upon The Day's Letter From Alabama-would It Come And What Would It Say?-my Shabby Suits, My Poverty, And Love. While My Friends Were Launching Decently Into Life I Had Muscled My Inadequate Bark Into Midstream... I Was A Failure-mediocre At Advertising Work And Unable To Get Started As A Writer. Hating The City, I Got Roaring, Weeping Drunk On My Last Penny And Went Home.

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

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

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.

He Had Angered Providence By Resisting Too Many Temptations. There Was Nothing Left But Heaven, Where He Would Meet Only Those Who, Like Him, Had Wasted Earth.

Action Is Character.

Prose Talent Depends On Having Something To Say And An Interesting, Highly Developed Way Of Saying It.

So We Drove On Toward Death Through The Cooling Twilight.

Great Gatsby Gatsby

And Lastly From That Period I Remember Riding In A Taxi One Afternoon Between Very Tall Buildings Under A Mauve And Rosy Sky; I Began To Bawl Because I Had Everything I Wanted And Knew I Would Never Be So Happy Again.

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

I Don't Much Care Where I Am Anymore, Nor Expect Very Much From Places.

You Remind Me Of A Smoked Cigarette.

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

I Was Rather Literary In College—one Year I Wrote A Series Of Very Solemn And Obvious Editorials For The 'yale News.'—and Now I Was Going To Bring Back All Such Things Into My Life And Become Again That Most Limited Of All Specialists, The 'well-rounded Man.' This Isn’t Just An Epigram—life Is Much More Successfully Looked At From A Single Window, After All.

The Faces Of Most American Women Over Thirty Are Relief Maps Of Petulant And Bewildered Unhappiness.

Do You Ever Wait For The Longest Day Of The Year And Then Miss It? I Always Wait For The Longest Day Of The Year And Then Miss It!

Taking Her Hand He Led Her Out Into A Broad Stretch Of Hard Sandy Soil That The Moon Flooded With Great Splendor. They Floated Out Like Drifting Moths Under The Rich Hazy Light, And As The Fantastic Symphony Wept And Exulted And Wavered And Despaired, Ardita's Last Sense Of Reality Dropped Away, And She Abandonded Her Imagination To The Dreamy Summer Scents Of Tropial Flowers And The Infinite Starry Spaces Overhead, Feeling That If She Opened Her Eyes It Would Be To Find Herself Dancing With A Ghost In A Land Created By Her Own Fantasy.

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.

It Occurred To Me That There Was No Difference Between Men, In Intelligence Or Race, So Profound As The Difference Between The Sick And The Well.

I Know Myself," He Cried, "but That Is All-

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

Great Gatsby Love

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.

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.

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.

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.

He Wanted To Appear Suddenly To Her In Novel And Heroic Colors. He Wanted To Stir Her From That Casualness She Showed Toward Everything Except Herself.

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

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.

As Soon As I Arrived I Made An Attempt To Find My Host But The Two Or Three People Of Whom I Asked His Whereabouts Stared At Me In Such An Amazed Way And Denied So Vehemently An Knowledge Of His Movements That I Slunk Off In The Direction Of The Cocktail Table--the Only Place In The Garden Where A Single Man Could Linger Without Looking Purposeless And Alone.

She Wanted To Crawl Into His Pocket And Be Safe Forever.

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.

Often I Think Writing Is A Sheer Paring Away Of Oneself Leaving Always Something Thinner, Barer, More Meagre.

You Have To Develop A Conscience And If On Top Of That You Have Talent So Much The Better. But If You Have Talent Without Conscience, You Are Just One Of Many Thousand Journalists.

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

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

"if It Wasn’t For The Mist We Could See Your Home Across The Bay," Said Gatsby. "you Always Have A Green Light That Burns At The End Of Your Dock." Daisy Put Her Arm Through His Abruptly But He Seemed Absorbed In What He Had Just Said. Possibly It Had Occurred To Him That The Colossal Significance Of That Light Had Now Vanished Forever. Compared To The Great Distance That Had Separated Him From Daisy It Had Seemed Very Near To Him, Almost Touching Her. It Had Seemed As Close As A Star To The Moon. Now It Was Again A Green Light On A Dock. His Count Of Enchanted Things Had Diminished By One.

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

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.

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.

It Takes A Genius To Whine Appealingly.

We All Must Try To Be Good.

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

Great Gatsby American Dream

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

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

At Fifteen You Had The Radiance Of Early Morning, At Twenty You Will Begin To Have The Melancholy Brilliance Of The Moon.

There Is No Confusion Like The Confusion Of A Simple Mind.

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

Tender Is The Night

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.

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

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

No Amount Of Fire Or Freshness Can Challenge What A Man Will Store Up In His Ghostly Heart.

Life Is Much More Successfully Looked At From A Single Window.

And So With The Sunshine And The Great Bursts Of Leaves Growing On The Trees, Just As Things Grow In Fast Movies, I Had That Familiar Conviction That Life Was Beginning Over Again With The Summer.

I Never Believe Much In Happiness. I Never Believe In Misery Either. Those Are Things You See On The Stage Or The Screen Or The Printed Page, They Never Really Happen To You In Life.

Trending Author

Rutherford B. Hayes

Maurice Blanchot

Category