Books Quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald

50 Books quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald

All Books quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s page

Fitzgerald’s 50 reflections on books capture his fascination with the glamour and melancholy of the written word. He speaks to the allure of storytelling and the way books shape both identity and aspiration.

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I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Go on, she urged. Lie to me by the moonlight. Do a fabulous story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Books mean more than people to me anyway.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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An unread book is just a block of paper.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I was in love with a whirlwind, so when the girl threw me over, I went home and finished my novel.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Sometimes I don't know whether I'm real or whether I'm a character in one of my novels.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“And so we beat on, books against the critics, borne back ceaslessly into rewrites.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“am merely mourning that so many good or lively books are dead so soon, or only imperfectly kept alive in the cheap…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“The clean book bill will be one of the most immoral measures ever adopted. It will throw American art back into the…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“They damned the books I read and the things I thought by calling them immoral; later the fashion changed, and they damned…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader's mind as differing from, say,…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“ToScottie March 11, 1939 p. 387- 388 And please do not leave good books half- finished, you spoil them for yourself...Don't be…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“there's no beauty without poignancy and there's no poignancy without the feeling that it's going, men, names, books, houses--bound for dust--mortal--" a…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence. An author ought to write for the youth of his…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their Congressmen, countries try to…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“I want it to smell of magnolias instead of peanuts and I want my shoes to crunch on the same gravel that…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“I have lived so long within the circle of this book and with these characters that often it seems to me that…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I'm one of those people who go through the world giving other people thrills, but getting few myself except those I read…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Fitzgerald to Zelda's DR. Oct. 1932 "Why can't I sell my short stories?" she says. "Because you're not putting yourself in them.…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Then she added in a sort of childish delight: 'We'll be poor, won't we? Like people in books. And I'll be an…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college — one year I…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction -- Gatsby, who represented everything for…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst, but after all most of them live on…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their congressmen, countries try to…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Something not going well, Mr. Boxley?" The novelist looked back at him in thunderous silence. "I read your letter," said Stahr. The…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“I just think of people," she continued, "whether they seem right where they are and fit into the picture. I don't mind…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Dick, meanwhile, turned to Mr. Bloeckman, determined to extract what gold he could from this unpromising load. 'I hear all the new…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“To Frances Turnbull Nov. 9, 1938 p. 368 I've read the story carefully and, Frances, I'm afraid the price for doing professional…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Once upon a time all the men of mind and genius in the world became of one belief—that is to say, of…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Nonfiction is a form of literature that lies halfway between fiction and fact.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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You really ought to read more books - you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“There was the union of his soul with Gloria's, whose radiant fire and freshness was the living material of which the dead…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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More by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I want you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves. You can read in…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Tireless passion, fierce jealousy, longing to possess and crush-these alone were left of all his love for Rosalind; these remained to him as payment…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I found something! Courage--just that; courage as a rule of life and something to cling to always.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Life is a series of successful gestures...”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“Another dawn flung itself across the river; a belated taxi hurried along the street, its lamps still shining like burning eyes in a face…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“She plucked a twig and broke it, but she found no spring in it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“I'm one of those people who go through the world giving other people thrills but getting few myself except those I read into men…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Montana sunset lay between the mountains like a giant bruise from which darkened arteries spread across a poisoned sky.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“You loved me too?" he repeated.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“He was good looking, "sort of distinguished when he wants to be", had a line, and was properly inconstant. In fact, he summed up…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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What are you going to do? "Can't say - run for president, write -" "Greenwich Village?" "Good heavens, no - I said write -…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“The latter was considered a good fellow and a fine leader, until a year later, when he disappeared with a mess fund of eleven…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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“It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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