Fitzgerald Inspirational Quotes

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

I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.

It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. [Inaugural Address, January 20 1961]

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. She is beautiful.

For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over again.

But I suppose you must touch life in order to spring from it.

It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

I'll drink your champagne. I'll drink every drop of it, I don't care if it kills me.

There's no substitute for will. Sometimes you have to fake will when you don't feel it at all.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane. Respect rather than fear. There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything. Of course we make him pay afterward for his moment of superiority, his moment of impressiveness.

My courage is faith--faith in the eternal resilience of me--that joy'll come back, and hope and spontaneity. And I feel that till it does I've got to keep my lips shut and my chin high and my eyes wide--not necessarily any silly smiling. Oh, I've been through hell without a whine quite often--and the female hell is deadlier than the male.

It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.

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

Work like hell! I had 122 rejection slips before I sold a story.

He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

I could never be a Communist. I could never be regimented. I could never be told what to write.

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.

Why should all life be work, when we all can borrow? Let's think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow.

I’m Alabama-born, so a transplant here—but I think I could enjoy growing some roots.

It’s a grown-ups’ playground, isn’t it?

This general eclipse of ambition and determination and fortitude, all of the very qualities on which I have prided myself, is ridiculous, and, I must admit, somewhat obscene.

There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything. Of course we make him pay afterward for his moment of superiority, his moment of impressiveness.

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.

My life... my life has got to be like this. It's got to keep going up.

Is your generation so soft that they talk of going to pieces if life doesn't always present itself in terms of beautiful, easy decisions?

Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you - like music to the musician or Marxism to the communist - or else it is nothing, an empty, formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.

You—and I’ll venture every third writer in Europe nowadays—fancies himself a poet, when all you’re doing is building little towers of words set prettily on a page.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. —George Eliot

He drinks too much, it’s true, and he has not always been good to me or to himself, but I think he’s broken somewhere inside, and he drinks to try to fill the cracks.

Communism as I see it has no place in the United States, and the American people will not stand for its teachings.

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

Ne gariptir, acıdan kaçınmaya çalışırken, bazen bizi o noktaya getiren ayak izlerinin bir bir üzerinden geçmek gerekebilir.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

The good Lord has a way of turnin' all the bad stuff on its head and redeemin' it in some way.

His asking was preceded by his doing. The maker does not ask more of us than he himself was willing to give.

The spoken word is fleeting. That’s why novelists are so essential: we record everything we see, we dissect and analyze and reproduce the essence of what matters, for posterity.

You once asked for the world, Persephone. Congratulations, you just created one.

You probably think you know...The failure and the success both believe in their hearts that they have accurately balanced points of view, the success because he's succeeded, and the failure because he's failed. The successful man tells his son to profit by his father's good fortune, and the failure tells his son to profit by his father's mistakes.

A good style simply doesn't form unless you absorb half a dozen top flight authors every year. Or rather it forms but, instead of being a subconscious amalgam of all that you have admired, it is simply a reflection of the last writer you have read, a watered-down journaleese.

I want to kill every best-seller list and encourage Americans to discover for themselves inspired new literature that will endure in perpetuity. Let’s pluck from squalid obscurity underground, and publish, the next Hemingways, Fitzgeralds, Morrisons, Bellows, Barths, Vonneguts and Faulkners.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane. Respect rather than fear. There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything. Of course we make him pay afterward for his moment of superiority,

It really was a whole generation who were listening to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, James Moody, Fats Navarro and, a little bit later on, Mongo Santamaría and Chuck Berry, and these dozen or so guys gave them a voice. They led the way. They wrote what a whole generation wanted to read. The time was right and they seized the day by writing about their lives. They travelled, they got into scrapes, they got arrested, they got wasted … and they wrote about it. Isn’t that something?

They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.

Fitzgerald has charm. It's a silly word, but it's an exact word for me. I like 'The Great Gatsby' and it's sad, gay nostalgia.

I think the best thing about being a writer is getting to dream. It's constantly viewing life through the "what if?" lens.

Yes—well they were having words and she tossed some sand in his face. So naturally he sat on top of her and rubbed her face in the sand. We were—electrified.

When you nearly lose your life or the life of someone you love, your priorities do some seismic shifting.

Time and again the maker has used the small, seemingly weak vessels of his creation to confound the mighty. I'd say He takes particular pleasure in such incongruence.

Sometimes we must laugh at the memories that might otherwise defeat us.

When we seem to have no choice, we can trust the maker has made the right one for us.

Forgiveness costs a great deal but it has its own rewards. Bitterness keeps taking from your loss until you're hollow and empty.

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Why shouldn’t I? I demand silently. Why shouldn’t I become a famous writer? Like Norman Mailer. Or Philip Roth. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemmingway and all those other men. Why can’t I be like them? I mean, what is the point of becoming a writer if no one reads what you’ve written? Damn Viktor Greene and The New School. Why do I have to keep proving myself all of the time? Why can’t I be like L’il, with everyone praising and encouraging me? Or Rainbow, with her sense of entitlement. I bet Viktor Greene never asked Rainbow why she wanted to be a writer. Or what if-I wince-Viktor Greene is right? I’m not a writer after all.

We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.

Whenever any of these new writers come up who are brilliant, I always realize that you have more talent and more skill than any of them;---but circumstances have prevented you from realizing upon the fact for a long time. [About F. Scott Fitzgerald]

She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.

people often ignore the misfortune of others, you see. The world is a heartless place but it's not always because they don't care. It's sometimes because the are embarrassed, or because they don't know what to say, or because they simply cannot beat ro look into the eyes of someone who is suffering.

A writer must find his own grain, way, bent. ...He aspires to create new and original works. His way is alone. If he succumbs to ideologies, he turns into a mouthpiece. He must hang on to his identity for dear life. In the end he must rely on his own judgment. It’s the only way to survive as a writer and an artist.

Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on - I've seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides 'the next thing.' Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he's done. He's a bar on which a thousand things have been hung — glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them.

The magnitude of the satisfaction that a triathlete experiences upon crossing a finish line is directly proportional to the amount of suffering he has overcome to to get there. This reward knows no ability. Even the slowest of the slow can push themselves beyond existing limits and finish with tremendous satisfaction. But winning often demands and inspires the greatest suffering and thus confers the greatest sense of pride. Often, because of the nature of competition, it is precisely he who has the most guts who is the fastest and experiences the most intense fulfillment at the finish line. Theoretically, then, the most deeply satisfying experience a triathlete could have in the sport (and among the best in life) would occur at the finish line of a race in which he has overcome as much suffering as he could possibly ever endure, and knows it.

[Fitzgerald's] latter work represents essentially best qualities of chivalry and decency now too often lacking in the English themselves.

Theo Fitzgerald," she said, still trying to shake off the night's uninvited visitor. "I mean, really!" The shake turned into yet another shiver, the sort usually inspired by a particularly wicked mouthful of very rich, supersmooth, utterly sinful ice cream.

Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

A book is a gift you can open again and again." – Garrison Kellor "Some books leave us free and some books make us free." – Ralph Waldo Emerson "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." – Charles W. Eliot "A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." – Charles Baudelaire "There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things." – Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot "Books are mirrors: You only see in them what you already have inside you." – Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind "Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head." – Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one." – George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons "Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work." – Khaled Hosseini "Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while." – Malorie Blackman "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." – F. Scott Fitzgerald "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." – Frederick Douglass "Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere." – Jean Rhys "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." – Joan Didion, The White Album

In a rustic old hall in Detroit they prayed In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral. The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times, For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald" Amendment to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

...Daisy doesn't even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom... you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesn't believe in silver linings, because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure, Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. -Silver Linings Playbook, p. 9

Não há fogo nem frescura, por muito grandes que sejam, capazes de competir com os fantasmas que, no seu íntimo, um homem consegue armazenar.

Now, Max, I have told you many times that you are my publisher, and permanently, as far as one can fling about the word in this too mutable world....The idea of leaving you has never for one single moment entered my head.

Art invariably grows out of a period when, in general, the artist admires his own nation and wants to win its approval.

Artistic temperament is like a king with vigor and unlimited opportunity. You shake the structure to pieces by playing with it.

In my opinion, Fiction is a figment of our imagination & it causes us to dream but Reality taints dreams, and the F.scott Fitzgerald has clearly depicted this in The Great Gatsby.

Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.

_If it wasn´t for the mist we could see your home across the bay_ said Gatsby_ your always have a green light that burns all night under your dock.

Peace can be fragile and peace can be ugly and peace can be wrong. Peace built on lies is no peace at all.

A national obsession with a particular sport does not occur in a vacuum. Something lights the match. In the early twentieth century, Finland was a poor, nonindustrialized country where many people worked outdoors and got around on foot and (during the winter) on cross-country skis. These fertile conditions produced Hannes Kolehmainen, who won three gold medals in running events at the 1912 Olympics. Kolehmainen’s triumphs ignited an intense running craze in his home country. Every Finnish boy wanted to be the next Olympic hero. The result was a quarter-century of Finnish dominance of distance running, a dynasty that produced a number of athletes whose performances far surpassed those of the man who’d started it all. Ultimately, the passionate and widespread participation in running that Hannes Kolehmainen inspired had a much stronger impact on the performance of Finland’s top runners than did the conditions of poverty, lack of industrialization, and human-powered transportation that produced the first great Finnish runner. Sociologist

Aside from FAMILY, there is nothing more important in this world than Self-Education. You too can unmasks the #1 truth about Personal Development; ANYONE can Develop a Genius Mindset and Unleash Their Full Potential and Achieve Unimaginable Success. -J.R. Fitzgerald

Espero que vivas una vida de la que estés orgulloso. Si descubres que no es así, espero que tengas la fuerza para empezar de nuevo".

So when I’m listening to someone tell their story, I’m also asking myself, What characters does this person have in his head? Is this a confident voice or a tired voice, a regretful voice or an anticipating voice? For some reason, I like novels where the narrator has an elegiac voice. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, and Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, the narrators have a world-weary tone. It’s like they’re looking back on glorious past events when dreams were fresh and the world seemed new and the disappointments of life had not yet settled in. That voice sounds to me like writing done in the minor key, and I find it tremendously moving. But I guess I wouldn’t like to be around people with that voice in real life. In real life I’d prefer to be around my friend Kate Bowler’s voice. As I mentioned, Kate got cancer a few years ago, when she was a young mother, and her voice is filled with vulnerability and invites vulnerability, but mostly it says: Life can suck, but we’re going to be funny about it. She has a voice that pulls you into friendship and inspires humor; in her voice, laughter is never very far away.

Speaking of the great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald– Here was a Black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians.

when one is blessed with abundance they are also cursed with the burden of it.

There is always something new, something unexpected, on a distant horizon, and life forever changes. It twists and turns in ways one could never predict.

Hope is never destructive. Hope is the thing that keeps you going.

If I didn't learn to be anxious for nothing, I might jeopardize everything.

LORD, God Almighty, You have brought us safely to the beginning of this day. Defend us today by Your mighty power, that we may not fall into any sin, but that all our words may so proceed and all our thoughts and actions be so directed, as to be always just in your sight. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. Direct, we beg You, O Lord, our actions by Your holy inspirations, and carry them on by Your gracious assistance, that every prayer and work of ours may begin always with You, and through You be happily ended. Amen.

The Vegetable, or From President to Postman was inspired by the pervasive stupidity, gross cronyism and rampant corruption—in the Veterans Bureau, the Departments of Justice and the Interior—during the administration of the philistine president, Warren Harding, in the early 1920s.

You believed me. That was enough. That was what started it all.