F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Beautiful and Damned (1922)

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I learned a little of beauty - enough to know that it had nothing to do with truth - and I found, moreover, that there was no great literary tradition; there was only the tradition of the eventful death of every literary tradition.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mother says that two souls are sometimes created together and—and in love before they're born.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Then a strange thing happened. She turned to him and smiled, and as he saw her smile every rag of anger and hurt vanity dropped form him - as though his very moods were but the outer ripples of her own, as though emotion rose no longer in his breast unless she saw fit to pull an omnipotent controlling thread.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
There's no beauty without poignancy and there's no poignancy without the feeling that it's going, men, names, books, houses—bound for dust—mortal—

F. Scott Fitzgerald
In crowded rooms they would form words with their lips for each other's eyes

F. Scott Fitzgerald
She confused him and hindered the flow of his ideas. Self-expression had never seemed at once so desirable and so impossible.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
She was a dark, unenduring little flower - yet he thought he detected in her some quality of spiritual reticence, of strength drawn from her passive acceptance of all things. In this he was mistaken.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
I don't want just words. If that's all you have for me, you'd better go

F. Scott Fitzgerald
They were stars on this stage, each playing to an audience of two: the passion of their pretense created the actuality. Here, finally, was the quintessence of self-expression— yet it was probable that for the most part their love expressed Gloria rather than Anthony. He felt often like a scarecly tolerated guest at a party she was giving.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless world.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Of the things they possessed in common, greatest of all was their almost uncanny pull at each others hearts.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
The notion of sitting down and conjuring up, not only words in which to clothe thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed—the whole thing was absurdly beyond his desires.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Then, as though it had been waiting on a near by roof for their arrival, the moon came slanting suddenly through the vines and turned the girl's face the color of white roses.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one - the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
How I feel is that if I wanted anything I'd take it. That's what I've always thought all my life. But it happens that I want you, and so I just haven't room for any other desires.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
She was dazzling — alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
He was handsome then if never before, bound for one of those immortal moments which come so radiantly that their remembered light is enough to see by for years.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits which we call fine - courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of thing - can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't have the warpings of ignorance and necessity.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
A classic,' suggested Anthony, 'is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
I wish I could write. I get these ideas but I never seem to be able to put them in words.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Beauty is only to be admired, only to be loved - to be harvested carefully and then flung at a chosen lover like a gift of roses. It seems to me, so far as I can judge clearly at all, that my beauty would be used like that...

F. Scott Fitzgerald
She wanted to exist only as a conscious flower, prolonging and preserving herself.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Their eyes are full of kindness as each feels the full effect of novelty after a short separation. They are drawing a relaxation from each other's presence, a new serenity.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Don't say 'wife.' I'm your mistress. Wife's such an ugly word. Your 'permanent mistress' is so much more tangible and desirable….

F. Scott Fitzgerald
A man's social rank is determined by the amount of bread he eats in a sandwich.

F. Scott Fitzgerald