Great Gatsby Quotes

Past

“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”

Green light

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgasmic future that year by year recedes before us.”

Single dream

“He paid a high price for living so long with a single dream.”

Star + moon

“It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was just a green light.”

Sudden emptiness

“A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and great doors, endowing with the complete isolation of the host.”

Presence

“Gatsby stared around in a fazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real.”

Fix

“I’m going to fix everything the way it was before.. she’ll see.”

Stumbled short

“There must have been a moment in the afternoon when Daisy stumbled short of his dreams.”

Gathered

“I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps that went into loving Daisy.”

Seventeen

“So he created just the sort of Jay Gatsby a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent.”

Care

“I’d got a strong impression he was picking his words with care.”

Money

“Her voice was full of money.”

Careless

“They were careless people - Tom and Daisy, they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and vast carelessness.

Invited

“People were not invited - they went there.”

5 years

“He waited 5 years and bought a mansion, dispensing starlight to casual moths.”

Uncivilized

“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy.”

Enormous

“Gatsby’s house had never seemed so enormous.”

Ashes

“A fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where they took form of… men who moved dimly already crumbling into the powdery air.”

Contrast

“Sinister contrast.”

God

“God sees everything.”

Rose

“What a grotesque thing a rose is.”

Enchanted

“His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”

Pursued

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”

New York

“I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night.”

Into the past

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.”

Trembling

“He stretched his arms out towards the dark water… I could have sworn he was trembling.”

Wonder

“I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light.”

Hope

“[Gatsby] possessed an extraordinary gift for hope.”

Dead

“Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on.”

Shadows

“As if the past were lurking in the shadows of his house, just out of reach of his hand.”

Never loved

“Than she [Daisy] should say to Tom ‘I never loved you.’”