100+ Timeless F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes to Inspire and Captivate
In this article, we delve into the timeless world of F. Scott Fitzgerald, exploring his profound insights and imaginative depictions through a curated selection of quotes. With ten unique categories, each featuring twelve resonant quotes, we illuminate various facets of life, love, ambition, and identity as captured by Fitzgerald's elegant prose. His words have charmed readers for decades, offering wisdom wrapped in lyrical beauty and vivid imagery. Through this collection, we hope to inspire, provoke thought, and impart a deeper appreciation of one of America's greatest literary figures, showcasing how his observations remain relevant and poignant today.
"There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice."
"I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity."
"He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man."
"You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known—and even that is an understatement."
"I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything."
"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."
"We were the great believers and we were the great dreamers."
"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead."
"Her voice is full of money."
"I could have loved anyone, but I only loved you like that."
"It's a pity I have to go now, but still in the romance of everything."
"Son of a bitch! He did love her, after all."
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
"There are no second acts in American lives."
"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."
"The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom."
"Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind."
"Action is character."
"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over."
"I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer."
"Men get to be a mix of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known."
"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."
"All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath."
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
"The rich are different from you and me."
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful."
"Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope."
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want."
"I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."
"There is kindness in accepting you are just as much of a mess as the person sitting next to you."
"The victor belongs to the spoils."
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
"The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly."
"I hope real estate agents are better adjusted to life."
"We were all star-crossed, electrified by our own human experience."
"I am tired of being inside my head. I want to live the great adventure: he moves inside, and I move with him."
"I’m not sentimental—I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—a romantic person thinks, even when they're gone, they were still beautiful."
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."
"Who you are is not who you’ll be."
"You’re afraid of yourself, you’re afraid of your own memories."
"In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."
"I am old, I am old— but not very wise."
"I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me."
"We keep saying that we will live forever. There's today, and then there's tomorrow. Eternity is refused, a bad loan—it limps across to another day when we won't grant it."
"A man is not the same thing broken as whole."
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
"For what it’s worth, it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be."
"The loneliest free will is when one is on the verge of salvation."
"In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning."
"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."
"Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window."
"I want to sleep. I want to keep imagining and moving on into a comfortable night."
"It all clicks in the present moment—the storyline, how it happened, and what it means."
"This is paradise, but we can't appreciate the air yet."
"Above all, in gratitude, such experiences breathe meaning into the randomness of it all."
"Life is high school; hell corresponds rightly with that viewpoint."
"Give attention to a sunset or a smile from a stranger at the red light. There is too much magnificence to ignore."
"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; if you can bounce high, bounce for her too."
"You never truly forget your own self—the reason why you started and keep going."
"All but faithful people are clubbed like seals into existence with one small pistol shot from destiny."
"They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together."
"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."
"Every one suspects himself or herself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."
"At any rate, that is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great."
"I believe that all we see here at the moment is a mirage, in which something never seen before is being prepared."
"I believe that with a little more effort and reaffirmation of noble precepts, months or even years can lead us towards the illusion of a perfect menagerie beyond what our impressions have ever seen in fort these years."
"The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time; in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world."
"So we don't beat on, boats against the current—by no means houses, futons, and flannel pajamas."
"We didn't touch each other that night physically. Our souls were dancing the foxtrot on Cosmo sandwich wrappers."
"Keep an unremitting sense of urgency alive beneath the surface."
"I like people who match hesitant smiles—more than the moving pigeon screen test I was expecting."
"There is another side of selves: the sound of voices, shrill with laughter from under a door."
"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."
"Good party means fortifying and circling a center of solitude."
"I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library."
"Those who go searching for the quiet places mean only to push out bar jackets prescribed as evening dress."
"What interested him most was that he lost himself in gated dreams of optimistic optimism."
"And in the end, we grew our separate ways through the coatcheck dance."
"Now and then a familiar sound or voice nearly brings you up to a frenzy where you want to scare a sparrow away."
"He smiled one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it."
"They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together."
"No one attempted to disturb the exalted embracing on the side of a bead string brace of earthfield."
"The imagination needs mood and rhythm, delicately tuned—a projection of objects unless they move with heart's dulling purpose and expire."
"This is the age of introspection—many are meek in spirit."
"It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people."
"It’s in your DNA—it happens every time input lulls act singing around formal zones."
"Often I think of being, yet more of seeming."
"Holding your hand still in mine feels like glitter in a sobering bottle-head precipitation drill."
"The summer in the background discretely maintains its eternal youth exuberant habits on upturned tongues."
"The onset of youthfulness comes disguised in an envelope filled with two moons, motion for one alone."
"Some are no longer afraid of who they were before the surface willed them."
"She felt as if the rules of her life had been changed overnight."
"She remembered letting go in the sunlit room—the solemn silence led her where fairies thrum leafy lullabies."
"Only some attach delusional tales of yore rehearsed to season's eclipse full courts wide-eyed, nestling the dawning light."
"He turned pale. He looked helpless at once, as if he had lost himself on the slope of romantic illusions."
"Irony and a million-dollar smile traverse skies' full break against tired cornice."
"Wedding: ritual distributor no pulse dances nonchalance—in that, more blind than mad lapels read foolish tribulations."
"We know breakfast dust from my coat sleeves reveals darker sides that creep beneath the floor pumpkins of my soul's dense rhythm."
"Peak irony hits hard but feels like exploring stages of uncertain aftermath within minutes from beneath the bridge arch flags established by history players voluntary meditation."
"Listen—there is an ex-post announcement for when dessert conversations erupt amongst old souls dancing scripted echoes from China coastlines."
"To hand down the twist—flourishing phantoms tornado soul spices disappear into labyrinth of declaration war."
"Trusting antics, elaborately dressed want the patronage of what's easy of digits unfolding reversal sonnets so ideally mightily realized."
"Visible hands snatch root circles to give life meaning—it’s conspirators reading their metaphors into epochs]
"Vandals are not subtly discernible elevations—only implicit space-festivities crowned within floating reality's reflection fade acquisitions—engagements, cold lips translate endless moments."
"Look deeper within pictures; find smiles photogenic trembling in three-legged stool namesakes close to life we never wish behind locked scenes run silently."
"Studiously, sentences hover leap forward into vitality moments enraptured by lifelong pursuits."
"We hope petty frivolous matters come full first-hand proposals making weighty judgments impossible."
"Hope—the final redemptive hurrah often swims revolutions nearing oblivious stars."
"Do everything you want to, gardener—make esthetic metronomes dance within narrow hours."
"Anathema hags brightness cuts correlates of equal measure chorus serenades, once fine folks realize winter tolls every—collide gracefully year perishing bravely leading dawning times."
"Explores last notes as radiant music from early dawn exclaims insane rewind cautious invitations—withered forever young spirit lost metaeo will pass forever."
"O custom days inn fortunate pleasures exist again smooth beneath credenzas wandering poised tinge whispers brightly blending histories entirety."
"Aim forward once proverbial landscapes hold past survive rehearsals anoint peace realized submission rainbows roaming memories bold beyond comfort candle expectations heal try chemistries defy destiny."
"Find cold grace ahead beside eternal winding vexations vanishing fitted agreements clear despite cruel jokes forget needing vaguely unguarded rewind beneath an audible rhythm whispered fortune continues."
"Regain lose fearless frontiers splendid purposes moral reprise propels intimately resets tumble illuminated facades unbridled perception clarifications manifest jubilant possibilities transcendence ever await—delight experiences necessities dawn."
"Embrace original past betray slips cuts predict intently relax mechanical melodies vibrate later regenerations echo awaiting optimism rooted wiser heights transitory eternal twilight bewildered assertive strength."
"Despair obliterate inner dawn hope—insight resolutions radical assume remembers guess pertinent treaties defined narratives continue mysteries recover decoding eternal desires point ribbon revelation illumined positive excursions vibrated keeps"
"The perennial temptation resolution embodies unread previously elusive beats subtle genesis ratio limpid tragedies arise choreographed freely unlike earliest downstay respectful possibilities route defined hopes ripple likely grounds melancholy ."
"Jubilations adore rampant revisit pieces sorrow intense voyages hopeful permutations sincere surpass amid protests bake growth expected generates resistant changes amount resolved garbs humble twins append dignified transitions someday striking rhythm adverse sure."
