Gatsby Quotes Flashcards
Idealisation
“extraordinary” / “lovely” / “charming”
“getting deeper in love every minute”
“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath”
“actual and astounding presence”
“Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion that it had gone beyond her, beyond everything”
“cried to Gatsby” / “Oh, you want too much! I love you now - isn’t that enough?”
“He had committed himself to the following of a grail”
“Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor”
Enduring love / Effect of time on relationships
“Can’t repeat the past? He cried incredulously. Why of course you can!”
“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath”
“She wanted her life shaped now, immediately…by some force - of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality” / “That force took shape in the middle of the spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan”
“She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside”
“Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers”
“Five years next November. The automatic quality of Gatsby’s voice”
Societal pressure
“She wanted her life shaped now, immediately…by some force - of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality” / “That force took shape in the middle of the spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan”
“She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside”
“She’s not leaving me! Certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger”
“he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security, he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself”
“Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor”
Infidelity
Excuse being that Tom always loves Daisy
“I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife” (hypocritical)
“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”
“Tom Buchanan and Mrs Wilson stood face to face, discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name”
“I thought everybody knew… Tom’s got some woman in New York”
Excuse being that Gatsby and Daisy are truly in love
“He kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever believed in its existence before”
“Your wife doesn’t love you. She’s never loved you. She loves me.”
“Just tell him the truth - that you never loved him - and its all wiped out forever”
“Both of us loved each other all that time”
“I don’t think she ever loved him” / “Of course she might have loved him for just a minute, when they were first married - and loved me even more then”
