F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes
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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.
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Prose talent depends on having something to say and an interesting, highly developed way of saying it.
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When a man is tired of life on his 21st birthday it indicates that he is rather tired of something in himself.
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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.
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"What are you going to do?" "Can't say - run for president, write -" "Greenwich Village?" "Good heavens, no - I said write - not drink."
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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.
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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.
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A classic,' suggested Anthony, 'is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion.
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I've given parties that have made Indian rajahs green with envy. I've had prima donnas break $10,000 engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing button back in Ohio, I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.
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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.
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Dear, don't think of getting out of bed yet. I've always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous.
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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.
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It is not necessarily poverty of spirit that makes a woman surround herself with life - it can be a superabundance of interest.
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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.
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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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It takes a genius to whine appealingly.
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Many nights he lay there dreaming awake of secret cafes 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.
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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.
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Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind?
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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.
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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.
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I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.
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When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy by his inferiors. It should be a rule that bad writers must start with plain heroines and ordinary mornings, and, if they are able, work up to something better.
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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.