F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes
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It was an amazing predicament. He was, in one sense, the richest man that ever lived - and yet was he worth anything at all? If his secret should transpire there was no telling to what measures the Government might resort in order to prevent a panic, in gold as well as in jewels. They might take over the claim immediately and institute a monopoly.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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When she saw him face to face their eyes met and brushed like birds’ wings. After that everything was all right, everything was wonderful, she knew that he was beginning to fall in love with her.
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At fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon.
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I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this lawn and 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. [- Nick Carroway]
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Premature success gives one an almost mystical conception of destiny as opposed to will power-at its worst the Napoleonic delusion.
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It was a marriage of love. He was sufficiently spoiled to be charming; she was ingenuous enough to be irresistible. Like two floating logs they met in a head-on rush, caught, and sped along together.
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Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter... And the rain and over the fields a voice calling...
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He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and cafe, wearing a dress suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping away the dull hours of the forenoon.
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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.
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...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.
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You are mysterious, I love you. You’re beautiful, intelligent, and virtuous, and that’s the rarest known combination.
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I just couldn't make the grade as a hack-that, like everything else, requires a certain practiced excellence.
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I began to realize that for two years my life had been a drawing on resources that I did not possess, that I had been mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I might have enjoyed the company of a woman or two... Or three but that had never stopped me from loving you.