F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I’m not an expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’ve only read one of his books (The Great Gatsby, obviously), and from what little I do know about his personal life, he kind of seemed like an cad.

But I keep running across quotes of his, and there’s no denying that I like the way he strung words together. I like the way his brain worked, the way he spun thoughts. And because this blog is where I collect things that I love, if for no other reason than so I can revisit them while sipping cocktails like Daisy Buchanan, here are some of my favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes.

“A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.”

“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”

“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.”

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”

“In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’ clock in the morning, day after day.”

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”

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7 Comments

  1. Maria on December 18, 2012 at 11:09 AM

    Every time I read something by Fitzgerald I wish someone would assign me a book report on it or something. I feel like I could write 5 pages on that first quote alone. Oh that we all knew there was no difference between ‘pretty’ and ‘plain’…

  2. Emily from Seattle on December 18, 2012 at 12:41 PM

    I like the last one the most. :)

  3. [not the] Best Blog Ever on December 18, 2012 at 2:04 PM

    I’ve missed your blog. I just remembered today that it’s December – i.e., Annie’s back! Yay. It’s like an early Christmas present.

  4. Becca Groves on December 18, 2012 at 3:25 PM

    Laughing at my own joke!!!!

    So true!!!!!!!!

  5. Juliette on December 18, 2012 at 10:55 PM

    So lovely, the man sure can write a sentence!

    Another favorite FSF quote of mine is destined for a canvas in my bedroom:

    “They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”

  6. dn on December 19, 2012 at 8:02 PM

    I am an expert. Read Tender is the Night next.

    “One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.”

  7. Pamela | Girl Gone West on January 14, 2013 at 10:25 PM

    Oh wow I love these. Beautiful. Wanna go see the new movie together when it comes out, perhaps?

    Also, I’m reading backwards – congrats on getting out of debt!!! OMG!!!

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