The Great Gatsby Ch 1 Quotes

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’

Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.

In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.

Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a man whose efforts to fulfill his dreams ultimately lead to his downfall.

I could tell by the way that he talked that he was a Southerner too, and from his luggage, I knew that he was staying in West Egg.

But I wasn’t looking at them, for my attention was exclusively focused on a single green light, minute and far away.

Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said.

There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue garden men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.

I was rather literary in college — one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the ‘Yale News.’

Her voice is full of money, he said suddenly.

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.

The evening had made me light-headed and happy; I think I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my front door.

Gatsby turned out all right at the end.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America.

His smile was one of those rare smiles that you may come across four or five times in life.

It was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.

They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.

Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale.

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

I’m inclined to reserve all judgments.

But I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

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’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.

There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.

You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.

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

I lived at West Egg, the — well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.

Everybody thinks so — the most advanced people.

The front door opened ‘pang!’ and in walked Daisy, her face shining with that emotional excess that even the ears of wheat in the outdoor fields were moved by her presence.

He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling.

What are they, then?

I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.

I married him because I thought he was a gentleman, she said finally. I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.

There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that, said the other girl eagerly. He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.

Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet on the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

He looked at me sideways — and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying.

Her voice is full of money, he said suddenly.

It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way.

Then it was all true.

And what’s more, I love Daisy too. 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.

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American — that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games.

I think he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I asked him what business he was in, he answered, ‘That’s my affair,’ before he realized that it wasn’t the appropriate reply.

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.

That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a ——

He looked at me sideways — and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying.

They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.

It was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.

On either side, yellow, tragic eyes glanced into mine momentarily.

A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the ‘Follies.