The past, present, and future

Quote

Character

Chapter

Why they came east I don’t know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.

Nick

1

Gatsby had “a gift for extraordinary hope”

Nick

1

Tom was “one of those men that reach such an acute excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anti-climax”

Nick

1

“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow... And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”

Daisy

1

“Turbulent emotions possessed [Daisy]”

Nick

1

“I’m pretty cynical about everything”

Daisy

1

“The colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever... now it was again a green light on a dock.”

Nick

5

“He was running down like an overwound clock

Nick

5

“I saw the expression of bewilderment had come back to Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault but through the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything.”

Nick

6

“’Repeat the past? - why of course you can!... I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,’ he said, nodding determinedly. ‘She’ll see’”

Gatsby

6

“He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she go to Tom and say ‘I never loved you’. After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide on more practical measures to be taken”

Nick

6

“He was faithful to the end”

Nick

7

“The dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly”

Nick

7

“He was clutching at some last hope”

Nick

8

“You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?”

Gatsby

8

Gatsby “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream”

Nick

8

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”