Gatsby quotes

• “It was an extraordinary gift for hope.”

  • Gatsby’s hope to reunite with Daisy
• "Her eyes flashed about her, in a defiant way, rather than like Tom's."

  
  

  • Nick talking about Daisy
  • Recurring image of eyes throughout
• "His eyes brood on over the solemn dumping ground."

  • Talking about T.J. Eckleburg
  • Valley of Ashes - dirt-stricken area
  • Where George and Myrtle live
  • Use of eyes - "brooding" makes it seem like something is about to happen
• "Young men don't drift coolly out of nowhere."

  • Shows how calm Gatsby is - trying to be effortless like Buchanans as he is from new money
• "Endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host."

  • Gatsby is truly alone
  • Described as a "figure" rather than a human being (relates to his image as a projection rather than who he truly his.)
• "...all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

  • establishing that Nick is from a position of privilege but is grateful for it (contrast)
• "I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

  
  

  • Daisy about her daughter
  • Chapter 1
• "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."

  
  

  • Nick about Gatsby
  • Chapter 6
• "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they always smashed things up... then retreated back into their money... and let other people clean up the mess they made."

  
  

  • Nick
  • Chapter 9
• "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

  
  

  • Myrtle about George
  • Chapter 2
• "I wasn't actually in love but I felt a sort of tender curiosity."

  
  

  • Nick about Jordan
  • Chapter 3
• "This is a valley of ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat...where ashes take the forms of houses."

  
  

  • Chapter 2
• "I believed that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited."

  
  

  • Nick
  • Chapter 3
• "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."

  
  

  • Nick
  • Chapter 3
• "Yeah, Gatsby's very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend's wife."

  • Wolfsheim
  • Chapter 4
• "There are only the pursued, the pursing, the busy and the tired."

  • Nick
  • Chapter 4
• "I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well loved eyes."

  • Nick about Gatsby
  • Chapter 5
• "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."

  • Gatsby
  • Chapter 5
• “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.”

  (Nick about Gatsby, Ch 5)
• “Women run around to much these days to suit me.”

  (Tom, Ch 6)
• “A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.”

  (Tom, Ch 6)
• “Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!”

  (Gatsby, Ch 6)
• “He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick.”

  (Nick about Wilson, Ch 7)
• “They weren’t happy and yet they weren’t unhappy either.”

  (Nick about Tom & Daisy, Ch 7)
• “They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

  (Nick to Gatsby, Ch 8)
• ”i can’t wait all day” - Gatsby
• “Five years next November“
• • "defunct mantelpiece clock [...began] to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head."
• "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (Nick)
• "I Hope she'll be a fool. That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool" (Daisy)
• "I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life" (Nick)
• ”I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity." (Nick)
• "I just slip it on sometimes when I don't care what I look like" (Myrtle)
• ”Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!“ (Myrtle)