Great Gatsby - Quotes

Nick about Gatsby

"The single most hopeful person I have ever met, and likely will ever meet again."

Nick about Gatsby after Myrtle's death

"He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free."

Daisy about her daughter

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

Nick and judgement

"Reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope."

Tom, Daisy and money

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and . . . then retreated back into their money."

Nick and class

"I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth."

Gatsby and losing himself in Daisy

"He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy."

Dr Eckleburg's eyes

"The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic[…]pair of enormous yellow spectacles"

Gatsby and rumours

"Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once."

Nick and self-importance

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

Gatsby and Daisy's approval

"he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes."

Gatsby's downfall

"His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one."

Gatsby and illusions

"Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion."

Gatsby and deception

"he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."

Gatsby and self-deception

"Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!"

Myrtle's death

"her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and […] she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long."

Gatsby and the cost of dreaming

“he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream."

American Dream

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

Gatsby's appearance

"elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd."

Gatsby and lies

"He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it, or choked on it"

Gatsby and Daisy's value

"It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy — it increased her value in his eyes."

Tom Buchanan

"a cruel body."

Myrtle and sexuality

"she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can"

Myrtle and circumstance

"With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change."

The Green Light

"a green light that burns all night"

The Valley of Ashes

"fantastic farm where ashes grow."

Dr Eckleburg's eyes and watchfulness

"the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil"

Tom about Gatsby

“Mr Nobody from Nowhere”

Daisy’s voice

“Her voice was full of money”

Jordan and honesty

“She was incurably dishonest”

Jordan and intimacy

“I love large parties; they’re always so intimate”