F Scott Fitzgerald Quotes And Thoughts On Life

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”

In honor of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday on September 24, let’s take a closer look at some quotes from some of the Jazz Age’s favorite author. The Great Gatsby is certainly the most well known of his works, but Fitzgerald had plenty to say in this book and others on the nature of life, love, writing, and drunkenness.


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“Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.”

– Notebook E

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

– The Great Gatsby

“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go”

F Scott Fitzgerald Quotes & Thoughts On Life – The Beautiful and Damned

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”

– The Love of the Last Tycoon

“There is a moment—Oh, just before the first kiss, a whispered word—something that makes it worth while.”

– This Side of Paradise

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”

– The Great Gatsby

“An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.”

“If I knew words enough, I could write the longest love letter in the world and never get tired”

– The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.”

– This Side of Paradise

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

– The Great Gatsby

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

– The Great Gatsby

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”

– The Great Gatsby

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