F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes
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They were stars on this stage, each playing to an audience of two: the passion of their pretense created the actuality. Here, finally, was the quintessence of self-expression-- yet it was probable that for the most part their love expressed Gloria rather than Anthony. He felt often like a scarecly tolerated guest at a party she was giving.
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Summer was gone and now Indian summer. The grass was cold and there was no mist and no dew. After he left she would go in and light the gas and close the shatters, and he would go down the path and on to the village. To these two life had come quickly and gone, leaving not bitterness, but pity; not disillusion, but only pain.
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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.
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There was never a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn't be. He is too many people if he's any good.
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Of this story I can say that it came to me in an irresistible form, crying to be written. It will be accused perhaps of being a mere piece of sentimentality, but, as I saw it, it was a great deal more. If, therefore, it lacks the ring of sincerity, or even, of tragedy, the fault rests not with the theme but with my handling of it.
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It is difficult for young people to live things down. We will tolerate vice, grand larceny and the quieter forms of murder in our contemporaries... but our children's friends must show a blank service record.
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He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it.
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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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Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.
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Switzerland is a country where very few things begin, but many things end.
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my imagination persisted in sticking horrors into the dark- so I stuck my imagination into the dark instead, and let it look out at me.
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Action is character.
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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.
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'Look here, old sport, ... what's your opinion of me, anyhow?' A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves.
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Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply - I was casually sorry, and then I forgot.
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You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.
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The farmers may be the backbone of the country, but who wants to be a backbone?
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My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness.
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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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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 ---
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A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.
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He stretched his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. 'I know myself,' he cried, 'but that is all - '
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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.
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I never blame failure - there are too many complicated situations in life - but I am absolutely merciless toward lack of effort.