08/ 19/ 2012
Reading The Great Gatsby was an out of this world experience. I traveled to another place and era where Fitzgerald’s language — both poetic and filled with imagery — made me swoon.
The Great Gatsby is, in short, a story of unrequited love, self-discovery and the struggles that come along with both things. My favorite character, Nick, is the liaison of sorts. This line (a bit of advance given to Nick) explains him perfectly, “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” Brilliant.
For me, that’s what made The Great Gatsby so beautiful—Fitzgerald’s language. So I’ve decided to limit my commentary (clearly I loved this book) and share my favorite quotations with you:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world.”
“You always look so cool.”
“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”
“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”
“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
“So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star.”
“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.”
“I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires”
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him…”
I.love.this. I once went to a Gatsby party. Everyone dressed up in period clothing and danced and drank excessive amounts of champagne. You would have loved it.
That’s amazing—I would have loved it! Remember how we used to talk about what theme we’d give our 30th birthday parties? I’ve decided mine will be Gatsby themed… bring on the fringe, the bow-ties and of course the champagne. You’ll be designing the invitations of course 😉