Quotes from the Great Gatsby

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Nick Carraway

"I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

Daisy Buchanan

"Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"

Jay Gatsby

"They're a rotten crowd… You're worth the whole damn bunch put together."

Nick Carraway

"It takes two to make an accident."

Jordan Baker

"Her voice is full of money."

Jay Gatsby

"Civilization’s going to pieces… It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

Tom Buchanan

"I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."

Nick Carraway

"It makes me sad because I've never seen such—such beautiful shirts before."

Daisy Buchanan

"God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!"

George Wilson

"I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy."

Jordan Baker

"Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope."

Nick Carraway

"I married him because I thought he was a gentleman… but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

Myrtle Wilson

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us."

Nick Carraway

"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."

Nick Carraway

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

Jordan Baker

"Whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had, were of the money."

Nick Carraway (describing Daisy)

"He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life."

Nick Carraway (describing Gatsby)

"Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."

Nick Carraway

"I did love him once—but I loved you too."

Daisy Buchanan

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness…"

Nick Carraway

"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy! I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai –– "

Myrtle Wilson

"Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time."

Tom Buchanan

"He’s a gambler… He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919."

Jay Gatsby (describing Wolfsheim)

"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."

Jordan Baker

"They're real. Here. Let me show you. They have pages in them. See? A bonafide piece of printed matter. It fooled me"

Owl Eyes

"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."

Nick Carraway

"You always look so cool."

Daisy Buchanan (telling Gatsby she loves him)

"Your wife doesn't love you. She's never loved you. She loves me."

Jay Gatsby

"I hate careless people. That’s why I like you."

Jordan Baker

"See! It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco."

Owl Eyes

"I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before... She'll see."

Jay Gatsby

"Whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had, were of the money."

Nick Carraway

"He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive."

Tom Buchanan (describing George Wilson)

"Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something."

Henry C. Gatz (Gatsby's father)

"Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair."

Nick Carraway

"The God damned coward! He didn’t even stop his car."

Tom Buchanan

"It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard

drinking people."

"Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself."

Nick Carraway

"I just got wised up to something funny the last two days... That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering you about the car."

George Wilson

"He went to Oggsford College in England. You know Oggsford College?"

Meyer Wolfsheim

"What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there."

Ewing Klipspringer

"I’m p-paralyzed with happiness."

Daisy Buchanan

"If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay... You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock."

Jay Gatsby

"Whatever you want to do is all right with me... I wouldn't ask too much of her. You can't repeat the past."

Nick Carraway

"Self-control! … I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife."

Tom Buchanan

"Look here, old sport, you’ve got to get somebody for me. You’ve got to try hard. I can’t go through this alone."

Nick Carraway (imagining Gatsby speaking to him)

"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."

Nick Carraway