Gatsby quotes

‘He told me, just remember that all the people in this world…

…haven’t had the advantages you’ve had’ - Nick

‘I lived at West Egg -…

…well, the less fashionable of the two’ - Nick

‘They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering…

…as if they had just been blown back in after a shot flight around the house’ - Nick

‘The idea is if we don’t look out…

…the white race will be utterly submerged’ - Tom

‘I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world…

…, a beautiful little fool’ - Daisy

‘The eyes of…

…Dr TJ Eckleburg’ - Nick

‘He was a blond, spiritless man…

…anaemic and faintly handsome’ - Nick about George

‘It’s just a crazy old thing…I just slip it on sometimes…

…when I don’t care what I look like’ - Myrtle

‘She really ought to…

…get away from him’ - Catherine about Myrtle & George

‘Tom Buchanan broke her…

…nose with his open hand’ - Nick

‘In his blue gardens men and girls…

…came and went like moths’ - Nick about Gatsby’s parties

‘A pyramid of…

…pulpless halves’ - Nick

‘He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on the shelf…

…muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse’ - Nick

‘East Egg condescending to West Egg and carefully on guard…

…against its spectroscopic gaiety’ - Nick

‘A sudden emptiness seemed to flow…endowing with complete isolation…

…the figure of the host’ - Nick

‘She was incurable dishonest. She wasn’t able to…

…endure being at a disadvantage’ - Nick about Jordan

‘I am one of the few honest people…

…that I have ever known’ - Nick

‘He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford’…

…or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before’ - Nick

‘The very phrases were worn so threadbare…

…that they evoked no image’ - Nick

‘I had a glimpse of Mrs Wilson straining at the garage pump…

…with panting vitality as we went by’ - Nick

‘Yeah Gatsby’s very careful about women…

…He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife’ - Wolfsheim

‘I didn’t even realise…

…it was the same man’ - Jordan about Gatsby

‘The largest of the lawns belonged…

…to Daisy Fay’s house’ - Jordan

‘She was effectually…

…prevented’ - Jordan

‘Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more…

…pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before’ - Jordan

‘Gatsby bought that house so that…

…Daisy would be just across the bay’ - Jordan

‘I think he half expected her to wander…

…into one of his parties, some night’ - Jordan

‘Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head,…

…whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place’ - Nick

‘He revalued everything in his house according to the measure…

…of response it drew from her well loved eyes’ - Nick

‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen…

…such beautiful shirts before’ - Daisy

‘Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light…

‘Now it was again a green light on a dock…

…had now vanished forever’ - Nick

…His count of objects had diminished by one’ - Nick

‘Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault,…

…but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion’ - Nick

‘His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people -…

…his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all’ - Nick

‘The vague contour of Jay Gatsby had…

…filled out to the substantiality of a man’ - Nick

‘Tom and I shook hands….and they trotted quickly down the drive,…

…disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby…came out the front door’ - Nick

‘She was appalled by West Egg…she saw something awful…

…in the very simplicity she failed to understand’ - Nick about Daisy

‘You can’t repeat…

…the past’ - Nick

‘Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise…

…I don’t think he ever really believed in it’s existence before’ - Nick

‘Her voice is…

‘That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money…High in a white palace…

…full of money’ - Nick

…the king’s daughter, the golden girl’ - Nick

‘Wilson was so sick that he looked…

…guilty, unforgivably guilty’ - Nick

‘Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic…

…His wife and his mistress…were slipping precipitately from his control’ - Nick

‘Flush with his impassioned gibberish,…‘The transition from libertine…

…he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilisation’ - Nick about Tom

…to prig was so complete’ - Nick about Tom

‘She never loved you, do you hear me…she only married you…

…because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me’ - Gatsby

‘Oh you want too much…I love you now…

…isn’t that enough’ - Daisy to Gatsby

‘‘There’s things between Daisy and me…

‘the words seemed to…

…that you’ll never know’ - Tom

…physically bite into Gatsby’ - Nick

‘But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up…

…and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away’ - Nick

‘‘Beat me’ he heard her cry ‘Throw me down…

…and beat me you dirty little coward’ - Myrtle

‘Her left breast was swinging loose like a flap…

…and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath’ - Nick

‘I’d be damned if i go in;…

…I’d had enough of all of them for one day’ - Nick

‘Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a a plate of fried chicken between them…there was an unmistakable air…

…of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would’ve said that they were conspiring together’ - Nick

‘So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight -…

…watching over nothing’ - Nick

‘However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past,…

…and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform may slip from his shoulders’ - Nick

‘Eventually he took Daisy one still October night,…

…took her because he had no real right to touch her hand’ - Nick

‘She vanished into her rich house,…

‘Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud…

…into her rich ,full life, leaving Gatsby’ - Nick

…above the hot struggles of the poor’ - Nick

‘She wanted her life shaped now - immediately - and the decision must be made by some force -…

…of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality’ - Nick

‘He stretched out his hand desperately…

…as if to snatch only a wisp of air…but it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes’ - Nick

‘‘They’re a rotten crowd’…'You’re worth…

‘It was the only compliment I ever gave him,…

…the whole damn bunch put together’ - Nick

…because I disapproved of him from beginning to end’ - Nick

‘But Wilson stood there a long time, his face close…

…to the window pane, nodding into the twilight’ - Nick

‘Paid a high price for living too long with a single dream…

…He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves’ - Nick about Gatsby’s death

‘It grew upon me that i was responsible,…

…because no one else was interested’ - Nick

‘His eyes leaking…

‘He had a…

…isolated and unpunctual tears’ - Nick about Gatsby’s father

…big future before him, you know’ - Gatsby’s father

‘Nobody…

‘Daisy hadn’t sent…

…came’ - Nick

…a message or a flower’ - Nick

‘Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed…

…some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life’ - Nick

‘They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then…

…retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together’ - Nick

‘His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it…

‘Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us…

…He did not know that it was already behind him’ - Nick

…It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further’ - Nick