The Great Gatsby is American author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, which is also regarded as the lifetime achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has managed to captivate generations of readers and is still enjoyed by readers today. The novel depicts 1920s America through the story of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and his encompassing love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. The majority of the novel is set in Long Island amidst the neverending lavish parties that the wealthy of the time indulged in.
The Great Gatsby is a cult classic in the American literary scene. It has left its mark in shaping the modern fictional genre and molding it into what it is today. The Great Gatsby is a safe haven for writers, readers, and other gentle-hearted souls, as they often turn to it with an aim to understand love, life, and the complex mystery that is human nature.
The main reason why The Great Gatsby manages to resonate with readers so much is simple. It is a book that shows how we often perceive other people’s tragedy and love as merely external observance. This is shaped by the story being told through the eyes of Nick, the narrator, instead of Gatsby, who is a central character of the book. It is a bittersweet tale, shaped by love, but obstructed by the harshness of reality.
Since love is such a central theme to the book, here are my favorite Great Gatsby quotes on it. I hope you find your own meaning in them and feel inspired to read the book if you haven’t already.
- “He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.”
- “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”
- “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.”
- “I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
- “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”
- “I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
- “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.”
- “She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.”
- “The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”
- “It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.”
- “For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened – then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight – watching over nothing.”
- “Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply.”
- “Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
- “He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”
- “I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.”
- “I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified.”
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
