I was entirely unconvinced about anything, except that some people were strong and attractive and could do what they wanted, and others were caught and disgraced.
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.
Mrs. Gilbert added flavor to his adventure by being impressed with his courage in braving the harsh air.
Oh, it’s so hard to write you what I really feel when I think about you so much; you’ve gotten to mean to me a dream that I can’t put on paper any more.
He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her.
But the army – let me see – well, I discovered that physical courage depends to a great extent on the physical shape a man is in. I found that I was as brave as the next man – it used to worry me before.
Assim vamos persistindo, como barcos contra a corrente, incessantemente levados de volta ao passado.
It had been a gay party and different stages of sobriety were represented.
Rosalind: Cecelia, darling, you don’t know what a trial it is to be like me. I’ve got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me. If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre, the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening. If I drop my voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on the phone every day for a week.
You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I?
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.
Everything was hallowed by the haze of his own youth.
Ci sono soltanto perseguitati e persecutori, affaccendati e stanchi.
What had seemed a melancholy happening, now seemed a tiresome anticlimax. HE was dressed at half past, so he sat down by the window; felt that the sinews of his heart were twisted somewhat more than he had thought. What an ironic mockery the morning seemed! – bright and sunny, and full of the smell of the garden...
Why are all the exciting things so uncomfortable? Like fighting and exploring and skiing in Canada?
Thoughts are Things; things that have a tendency to transform into our reality.
ABout three-fourths of the whole business was for effect and therefore harmless, ended at the door of the cafe, soon enough for the five-o’clock train back to Yale or Princeton; about one-fourth continued on into the dimmer hours and gathered strange dust from strange places.
Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring.
At first there would be an American cast to the congress, almost Rotarian in its forms and ceremonies, then the closer-knit European vitality would fight through, and finally the Americans would play their trump card, the announcement of colossal gifts and endowments, of great new plants and training schools, and in the presence of the figures the Europeans would blanch and walk timidly.
They made no love that day, but when he left her outside the sad door on the Zurichsee and she turned and looked at him he knew her problem was one they had together for good now.