“I want to just be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe - and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me.”

“I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to some one. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth.”

“No," interrupted Marcia emphatically. "And you're a sweet boy. Come here and kiss me."Horace stopped quickly in front of her."Why do you want me to kiss you?" he asked intently. "Do you just go round kissing people?""Why, yes," admitted Marcia, unruffled. "'At's all life is. Just going around kissing people.”

“I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn't come that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four years--even after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the same man.”

“I’m not sure what I’ll do, but— well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.”

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

“I am too much a moralist at heart, and really want to preach at people in some acceptable form, rather than entertain them.”