Nick Carraway

"Never quite understood the old families in the East."

"I knew the world's a hard place."

"Of all the confusing and marvelous inhabitants of this earth, none seems to me more deeply rooted in futility."

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me advice."

"An extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness."

"Across the bay the moon rose higher into a face of diffusing stars."

"He smiled like a man who had fought his way through to serenity."

"I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night."

"The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself."

"I felt the fundamental decencies are parceled out unequally at birth."

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

"Of all the confusing and muddled ducats in the world, the most mysterious change takes place in the very heart."

"Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope."

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

"He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles that seemed to understand you completely."

"So it had come to this, and he knew how little it mattered to anyone at all."

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

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

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us."

"It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams."

"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."

"The rich are different from you and me."

"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me."

"I was the only one who loved him."

"Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to obtain the necessities of life."

"The truth was that Jay Gatsby came from West Egg, Brooklyn."

"He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly."

"So I became one of the crude vineyards."