Quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald

It was a tradition between them that they should never be too tired for anything, and they found it made the days better on the whole and put the evenings more in order.

Atingi a maturidade com a impressão de estar acumulando experiência para organizar minha vida com vistas a ser feliz. Na verdade, consegui o feito nada comum de resolver cada problema na minha cabeça muito antes de ele se apresentar na vida, ficando perplexo e derrotado assim mesmo.

Weep not for me but for thy children.

For him time stood still and then every few years accelerated in a rush, like the quick re-wind of a film, but for Nicole the years slipped away by clock and calendar and birthday, with the added poignance of her perishable beauty.

one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on YOU with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so 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.

Gloria was sure she wanted but to read and dream and be fed tomato sandwiches and lemonades by some angelic servant still in a shadowy hinterland. Between paragraphs Anthony would come and kiss her as she lay indolently in the hammock….

Há gente que diz que a inteligência deve ter criado o universo; ora, a inteligência jamais construiu um motor a vapor! A inteligência não passa de uma pequena régua que usamos para medir as realizações infindáveis das circunstâncias.

Tell me about yourself." And she gave the answer that Adam must have given. "There's nothing to tell." But

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.

Durante il fragoroso decollo Dick si sentì intorpidito, rendendosi conto di quanto fosse stanco. Un'enorme persuasiva tranquillità s'impossessò di lui, e lasciò la malattia ai malati, il rumore ai motori, la direzione ai piloti.

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 humor. 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.

His eyes were of a bright, hard blue. His nose was somewhat pointed and there was never any doubt at whom he was looking or talking - and this is a flattering attention, for who looks at us? - glances fall upon us, curious or disinterested, nothing more.

But I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone - he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling.

Oh, what did it matter? This night, this glow, the cessation of anxiety and the sense that if living was not purposeful it was, at any rate, essentially romantic!

He was remembering too vividly the youth and freshness of her lips.

I suppose he smiled at Cody - he had probably discovered that people liked him when he smiled.

one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses.

When a girl tells the man she likes second best about the other one, then she's in love. --Cecelia Brady

They were still in the happier stage of love. They were full of brave illusions about each other, tremendous illusions, so that the communion of self with self seemed to be on a plane where no other human relations mattered. They both seemed to have arrived there with an extraordinary innocence as though a series of pure accidents had driven them together, so many accidents that at last they were forced to conclude that they were for each other.

These people could appreciate me and take me for granted, and these men would fall in love with me and admire me, whereas the clever men I meet would just analyze me and tell me I'm this because of this or that because of that. —Anthony for the moment wanted fiercely to paint her, to set her down now, as she was, as, as with each relentless second she could never be again. What

Like most women she liked to be told how she should feel

What do you remember—their kisses? All sorts of things…. Men are different with women. Different in what way? Oh, entirely—and quite inexpressibly. Men who had the most firmly rooted reputation for being this way or that would sometimes be surprisingly inconsistent with me. Brutal men were tender, negligible men were astonishingly loyal and lovable, and, often, honorable men took attitudes that were anything but honorable. For

Oh God! One minute it's my world, and the next I'm the world's fool.

He saw Nicole in the garden. Presently he must encounter her and the prospect gave him a leaden feeling. Before her he must keep up a perfect front, now and tomorrow, next week and next year. All night in Paris he had held her in his arms while she slept light under the luminal; in the early morning he broke in upon her confusion before it could form, with words of tenderness and protection, and she slept again with his face against the warm scent of her hair.