The quotations of

F. Scott Fitzgerald

American writer

1896–1940

32 quotes, most often on Money, Time and Experience.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The Great Gatsby (1925), Closing linesIn context
- Time
Whenever you feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.
The Great Gatsby (1925)
- Advice
Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.
Notebook E, edited by Edmund Wilson (1945)
- Genius
There are no second acts in American lives.
The Last Tycoon, “Hollywood, ETC.,” ed. Edmund Wilson (1941)
- America
My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness.
Letter to his daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald (July 1938)
- Virtue
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
Notebook E (1945) edited by Edmund Wilson
- Writing
In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.
The Crack-Up (1936)
- Emotion
The idea that to make a man work you’ve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We’ve done that for so long that we’ve forgotten there’s any other way.
“Amory Blaine” in This Side of Paradise (1920) Bk. 2, Ch. 5
- Money
- Work
The victor belongs to the spoils.
The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
- Success
The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), “O Russet Witch!”
- Age
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.
Tender is the Night (1934), Bk. 2, Ch. 11
- Experience
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter IIn context
- Advice
I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool⁠—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter IIn context
- Women
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter IIIn context
- Experience
In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.
The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter IIIIn context
- Entertainment

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