F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes
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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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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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There was a kindliness about intoxication - there was that indescribable gloss and glamour it gave, like the memories of ephemeral and faded evenings.
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Action is character.
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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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Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
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The farmers may be the backbone of the country, but who wants to be a backbone?
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If he had to bring all the bitterness and hatred of the world into his heart, he was not going to be in love with her again.
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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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Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willow. May came too soon, and suddenly unable to bear walls, he wandered the campus at all hours through starlight and rain.
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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.
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We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their Congressmen, countries try to believe in their statesmen, but they can't. Too many voices, too much scattered, illogical ill-considered criticism.
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To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.
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Stahr's eyes and Kathleen's met and tangled. For an instant they made love as no one ever dares to do after. Their glance was slower than an embrace, more urgent than a call.
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A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.
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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.
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I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.
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To Anthony life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. It was as a concession to his hypochondriacal imagination that he formed the habit of reading in bed - it soothed him. He read until he was tired and often fell asleep with the lights still on.
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In a few days I'll have lived one score and three days in this vale of tears. On I plod-always bored, often drunk, doing no penance for my faults-rather do I become more tolerant of myself from day to day, hardening my crystal heart with blasphemous humor and shunning only toothpicks, pathos, and poverty as being the three unforgivable things in life.
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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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So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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Intelligence is measured by a person's ability to see validity within both sides of contradicting arguments.
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Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits which we call fine - courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing - can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't have the warpings of ignorance and necessity.
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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.