Jay Gatsby Quotes

When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction – Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 1. Although Gatsby represents everything that Nick hates and he sees him as low-class, he exempts him for it because Gatsby was born poor and worked for his money.

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. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 1, for Gatsby the green light at end of Daisy’s dock represents the American Dream and his dream of being reunited with Daisy, the woman he loves. It is a constantly recurring symbol in the novel.

There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and he champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motor-boats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 3, on the wealthy Gatsby’s home and guests. The culture of wealth-worship and materialism is one of the central themes of the novel. Nowhere is that more evident than at Gatsby’s lavish parties, which people are drawn to by their sheer spectacle and Gatsby’s money and wealth.

‘Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.’
A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly.
‘I don’t think it’s so much THAT,’ argued Lucille sceptically; ‘it’s more that he was a German spy during the war.’
One of the men nodded in confirmation.
‘I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,’ he assured us positively.
‘Oh, no,’ said the first girl, ‘it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.’ As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. ‘You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 3. Will the real Jay Gatsby please stand up? Gatsby is a mystery man, the master illusionist, and no one really knows who he is or how he got his money. At his lavish all-night parties his illusion is further fed by rumors and elaborate stories his guests tell about him.

‘See!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too – didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 3. Owl-eyed man in Gatsby’s library gives one of first hints that Gatsby is a fraud. He expresses surprise that Gatsby’s books are real, not fake, as he had expected. He had thought the books would be ‘a nice durable cardboard’, giving the illusion of a library where none existed. Gatsby’s life is all for show, he has a library filled with books that have never been read, making him seem more cultured than he really is. While Gatsby can buy the things that rich people have, he can’t buy the education or experience.

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 external 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.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 3. Nick is in awe on his first meeting with Gatsby, the American Dream personified. He is captivated by his new friend’s charming and charismatic personality, especially his smile, the kind of smile you only experience a few times in your life.

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. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness.
He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 4, Gatsby is impatient and restless, like the rest of America. It seems that no one in the 1920s there could wait patiently to fulfil their dreams.

He reached in his pocket and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm.
‘That’s the one from Montenegro.’
To my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look.
Orderi di Danilo, ran the circular legend, Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.
‘Turn it.’
Major Jay Gatsby, I read, For Valour Extraordinary.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 4. On seeing Gatsby’s medal, Nick begins to believe and appreciate Gatsby and no longer just views him as a puffed-up fraud who bent and exaggerated the truth.

‘Here, deares’. She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. ‘Take ’em down-stairs and give ’em back to whoever they belong to. Tell ’em all Daisy’s change’ her mind. Say: ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 4, Daisy knows the expensive string of pearls Tom gave her is about to become a chain and changes her mind about marrying Tom Buchanan. When drunk she wants to marry the man she really loves, Jay Gatsby. But then she sobers up and in the cold light of day she does what she was born to do: marry the rich man – Tom.

Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked you – do you remember? – if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up, and said: ‘What Gatsby?’ and when I described him – I was half asleep – she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. It wasn’t until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 4. Jordan Baker relating the story of Daisy to Nick Carraway. And how she realized that Jay Gatsby was the young officer who before she married Tom watched her ‘in a way that every girl wants to be looked at’ – her former love.

When I said you were a particular friend of Tom’s, he started to abandon the whole idea. He doesn’t know very much about Tom, though he says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 4. Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy to his house and let Gatsby come over. Gatsby has read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name, she says. He is devoted to, or obsessed with Daisy.

‘I’ll tell you God’s truth.’ His right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by. ‘I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 4. Jay Gatsby raises his right hand and invokes God’s retribution if he is lying. Which is course he is, having invented the illusion of coming from old money and being a highly educated Oxford man.

He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford,’ or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him now. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him, after all.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 4. Nick notices Gatsby seeming to choke on the words ‘educated at Oxford’, making him suspicious of him, as if Gatsby is telling a lie. It turns out Gatsby did attend Oxford, but only for five months before dropping out.

‘Your place looks like the World’s Fair,’ I said.
‘Does it?’ He turned his eyes toward it absently. ‘I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let’s go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car.’
‘It’s too late.’
‘Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming-pool? I haven’t made use of it all summer.’
‘I’ve got to go to bed.’
‘All right.’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 5, Gatsby has a house full of people. But all he wants is one friend to go swimming with him. Despite his wealth and grand parties, Gatsby is a lonely man and doesn’t have any true friends.

They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy’s face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 5. Gatsby and Daisy are at first uncomfortable at their reunion. But when Nick leaves them alone to sort it out and returns he finds them talking openly and emotionally. Gatsby is glowing with love for Daisy, though she is in tears, suggesting that maybe she is not as invested as Gatsby in the relationship.

He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, Chapter 5. Gatsby is blinded by love. A man who places a great importance on his wealth and material possessions, these now pale in comparison to the woman he loves.

He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an over-wound clock.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 5, Gatsby’s emotion changes from embarrasment to wonder, it is all too sudden for him to meet Daisy, whom he has been dreaming of for five years. The paradox is that when he achieves the thing he had strived so hard to get, he doesn’t know what to make of it.
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