Quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald

You've been drinking," she said shortly, and then added qualitatively, "a little. You know I loathe the smell of it.

Well, there I was, 'way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care.

Il est possible que Daisy n'ait jamais rencontré l'amour — bien qu'il y ait dans sa voix, sa vraie voix je veux dire, quelque chose qui... [...] Il y a six semaines, et pour la première fois depuis des années, elle a entendu prononcer le nom de Gatsby. [...] Alors de cette voix, justement, sa vraie voix, elle a dit que c'était sans doute celui qu'elle avait connu autrefois.

Il regarda autour de lui avec une brusque violence, comme si le passé était là, tapi dans l'ombre de la maison, mais hors de portée. — Je ferais tout pour que les choses soient comme avant. Exactement comme avant.

I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American — that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games.

Her fresh enthusiasm, her will to grow and learn, her endless faith in the inexhaustibility of romance, her courage and fundamental honesty--these things are not spoiled.

He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...

never walk near the bed; to a ghost your ankle is your most vulnerable part—once in bed, you're safe; he may lie around under the bed all night, but you're safe as daylight. If you still have doubts pull the blanket over your head.

Y así seguimos nuestro camino: botes que reman contra la corriente, incesantemente arrastrados hacia el pasado.

J'ai eu l'impression que la terre entière m'avait abandonnée. [...] J'ai tourné la tête et je me suis mise à pleurer. [...] De toute façon, je pense que tout est horrible. [...] J'ai été partout, j'ai tout fait, j'ai tout vu.

She danced exceptionally well, drew cleverly but hastily, and had a startling facility with words, which she used only in love letters.

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—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning——

There were days when Amory resented that life had changed from an even progress along a road stretching ever in sight, with the scenery merging and blending, into a succession of quick, unrelated scenes...

You want life to be a chain of flirtation with a man for every link. Want it to be one! You mean I've found it one.

in the last of those days when the great gardener clipped the inferior roses to produce one perfect bud.

Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

The unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at all are the totally ineligible ones.

The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walls and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.

inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild

You loved me too? he repeated.

Don't you know you can't do anything about people?

Sometimes when I've felt particularly radiant I've though, why should this be wasted on one man.

Men don't know how to be really angry or really happy—and the ones that do, go to pieces.