Quotes from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“I might have enjoyed the company of a woman or two... Or three but that had never
stopped me from loving you.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“You are meant to lose the people you love. How else would you know how important they are to you?”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“So he nodded, smiled, listened, was happy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“he found, as the new century gathered headway, that his thirst for gayety grew stronger.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“Benjamin discovered that he was becoming more and more attracted by the gay side of life. It”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“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.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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“Joe: Oo, Brittany "Aren't I Fabulous?" Hobson?
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Joe: Brittany "All the Boys Like Me, I'm so Popular I Could Die" Hobson.
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“In that moment she realized he had not been sleeping in the coach when she'd examined the miniature with such detached and puzzled longing. He had seen her take it out, caress it with her thumb, and talk softly to the man whose image it held. Shame and mortification blazed through her. "You saw," she said, red-faced with guilt. "I saw. But I do not condemn. I told you I would give you all the time you need, Juliet. I shall never, ever push you." "I know you won't, but Gareth, although I like you, am very, very fond of you, I ... I may never be able to love any man the way I loved Charles, and that is unfair to you." "Juliet."  He smiled with gentle tolerance, his hand caressing the side of her face. "My dearest Juliet. I knew when I asked you to marry me that you still loved him. I knew where your heart lay, where your thoughts lingered. I have always known, and I do not suffer any delusions that you may ever come to think of me in the same way that you did Charles. I accept that. Do you not see?" "Oh, Gareth..."  She shook her head, guilt twisting her heart. "What about you? What about how you feel about me?" "My dear," he said gently, "I should think that that is painfully obvious." She”
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“There's fire in my fingers. I burn everything I touch.”
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“. . . waves of desert heat . . . I must’ve passed out, because when I woke up I was shivering and stars wheeled above a purple horizon. . . . Then the sun came up, casting long shadows. . . . I heard a vehicle coming. Something coming from far away, gradually growing louder. There was the sound of an engine, rocks under tires. . . . Finally it reached me, the door opened, and Dirk Bickle stepped out. . . .

But anyway so Bickle said, “Miracles, Luke. Miracles were once the means to convince people to abandon reason for faith. But the miracles stopped during the rise of the neocortex and its industrial revolution. Tell me, if I could show you one miracle, would you come with me and join Mr. Kirkpatrick?”

I passed out again, and came to. He was still crouching beside me. He stood up, walked over to the battered refrigerator, and opened the door. Vapor poured out and I saw it was stocked with food. Bickle hunted around a bit, found something wrapped in paper, and took a bottle of beer from the door. Then he closed the fridge, sat down on the old tire, and unwrapped what looked like a turkey sandwich.

He said, “You could explain the fridge a few ways. One, there’s some hidden outlet, probably buried in the sand, that leads to a power source far away. I figure there’d have to be at least twenty miles of cable involved before it connected to the grid. That’s a lot of extension cord. Or, this fridge has some kind of secret battery system. If the empirical details didn’t bear this out, if you thoroughly studied the refrigerator and found neither a connection to a distant power source nor a battery, you might still argue that the fridge had some super-insulation capabilities and that the food inside had been able to stay cold since it was dragged out here. But say this explanation didn’t pan out either, and you observed the fridge staying the same temperature week after week while you opened and closed it. Then you’d start to wonder if it was powered by some technology beyond your comprehension. But pretty soon you’d notice something else about this refrigerator. The fact that it never runs out of food. Then you’d start to wonder if somehow it didn’t get restocked while you slept. But you’d realize that it replenished itself all the time, not just while you were sleeping. All this time, you’d keep eating from it. It would keep you alive out here in the middle of nowhere. And because of its mystery you’d begin to hate and fear it, and yet still it would feed you. Even though you couldn’t explain it, you’d still need it. And you’d assume that you simply didn’t understand the technology, rather than ascribe to it some kind of metaphysical power. You wouldn’t place your faith in the hands of some unknowable god. You’d place it in the technology itself. Finally, in frustration, you’d come to realize you’d exhausted your rationality and the only sensible thing to do would be to praise the mystery. You’d worship its bottles of Corona and jars of pickled beets. You’d make up prayers to the meats drawer and sing about its light bulb. And you’d start to accept the mystery as the one undeniable thing about it. That, or you’d grow so frustrated you’d push it off this cliff.”

“Is Mr. Kirkpatrick real?” I asked.

After a long gulp of beer, Bickle said, “That’s the neocortex talking again.”
― Ryan Boudinot, quote from Blueprints Of The Afterlife

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