Quote cards

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

Nick's father · Chapter 1 · class · honesty

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Nick's father tells him not to judge. Nick repeats it. He still judges.

an extraordinary gift for hope

Nick · Chapter 1 · the American dream · love

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This is what Nick cannot drop about Gatsby. Hope, not the parties.

that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool

Daisy · Chapter 1 · class · love

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Daisy hopes her daughter is a fool. She thinks that is the safest thing a girl can be.

a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock

Nick · Chapter 1 · the American dream · the past · love

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Nick sees Gatsby reaching for a light across the water. It is Daisy's dock. Gatsby does not say her name yet.

the valley of ashes

Nick · Chapter 2 · class · death

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The dump between West Egg and the city. The people who serve the rich live in the dust.

the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

Nick · Chapter 2 · honesty · death

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A faded billboard. A dead oculist. Wilson later talks to it like God.

I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known

Nick · Chapter 3 · honesty

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Nick says this about himself. Watch whether it stays true.

He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved you."

Nick · Chapter 6 · love · the past

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Gatsby does not want Daisy now. He wants the last four years erased.

Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself

Nick · Chapter 6 · the American dream · the past

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James Gatz invented Jay Gatsby. He invented a man and then tried to become him.

Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!

Gatsby · Chapter 6 · the past · the American dream

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Nick says you cannot. Gatsby thinks you can. The book is about that fight.

Her voice is full of money

Gatsby · Chapter 7 · money · love · class

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Nick could not name what was in Daisy's voice. Gatsby could. Money.

I did love him once—but I loved you too

Daisy · Chapter 7 · love · honesty

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Gatsby needs her to say she never loved Tom. She cannot say it cleanly.

The "death car" as the newspapers called it, didn't stop

Nick · Chapter 7 · death · class

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Daisy is driving. Myrtle runs into the road. The car does not stop.

They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.

Nick · Chapter 8 · honesty · class

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The only compliment Nick ever gives Gatsby. He says it across the lawn. Gatsby dies anyway.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money

Nick · Chapter 9 · class · money · death

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They break Myrtle. They break Gatsby. They leave. Money is the door they close behind them.

He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it

Nick · Chapter 9 · the American dream · the past

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The lawn is Daisy's. The dream is already behind him. He does not know.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us

Nick · Chapter 9 · the American dream · the past

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The light was a dock lamp. Gatsby made it a future. The future keeps moving away.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past

Nick · Chapter 9 · the past · the American dream

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The last line. We row forward. The water takes us back.

You can't repeat the past.

Nick · Chapter 6 · the past

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Nick says the ordinary thing. Gatsby does not believe ordinary things.

You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock

Gatsby · Chapter 5 · love · the American dream

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He tells Daisy he has been watching her light. She puts her arm through his. He is still looking at the light.