F. Scott Fitzgerald · 64 pages
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“You’re just the romantic age,” she continued- “fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is- oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty.” - Hildegarde”
“For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
“I might have enjoyed the company of a woman or two... Or three but that had never
stopped me from loving you.”
“I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
“You are meant to lose the people you love. How else would you know how important they are to you?”
“The past--the wild charge at the head of his men up San Juan Hill; the first years of his marriage when he worked late into the summer dusk down in the busy city for young Hildegarde whom he loved; the days before that when he sat smoking far into the night in the gloomy old Button house on Monroe Street with his grandfather-all these had faded like unsubstantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been. He did not remember.”
“So he nodded, smiled, listened, was happy.”
“When his son was dressed Mr. Button regarded him with depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and a belted blouse with a wide white collar. Over the latter waved the long whitish beard, drooping almost to the waist. The effect was not good.”
“A rigour passed over him,
blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a steady thumping in his ears. It was first love.”
“Benjamin felt himself on the verge of a proposal--with an effort he choked back the impulse. "You're just the
romantic age," she continued--"fifty. Twenty-five is too wordly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork;
forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is--oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is
the mellow age. I love fifty.”
“he found, as the new century gathered headway, that his thirst for gayety grew stronger.”
“Benjamin discovered that he was becoming more and more attracted by the gay side of life. It”
“Benjamin started; an almost chemical change seemed to dissolve and recompose the very elements of his body. A rigour passed over him, blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a steady thumping in his ears. It was first love.”
“Love to a woman is what the sun is to the world, it is her life, her animating principle, without which she must droop, and, if the plant be very tender, die. Except under its influence, a woman can never attain her full growth, never touch the height of her possibilities, or bloom into the plenitude of her moral beauty. A loveless marriage dwarfs our natures, a marriage where love is develops them to their utmost.”
“Ryan grabbed Marco’s arm. “I have to see her.” Marco glowered back at him, not sure if Ryan could see in the dim light the amount of pissed-off-ness he felt. Ryan didn’t back down. “It’s your funeral,” Marco said, and continued to walk. Ryan stumbled slightly, trying to keep up—aftereffects of the flu? “So Shay’s your girlfriend?” he asked, panting as if walking was too much for him.”
“There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us, whether as explanations for a life that never quite finds its true force or direction, or as fuel for ambition, or as a kind of reflexive secular religion that, paradoxically, unites us with others in a shared sense of complete isolation: you feel at home in the world only by never feeling at home in the world.”
“The demands of justice must be met; the requirements of God’s holiness must be satisfied; the awful debt we incurred must be paid. And on the Cross this was done; done by none less than the Son of God; done perfectly; done once for all. “It is finished.”
“It's been a long time since you asked me for anything. I'm not going to fuck it up.”
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