“It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.”

“We are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves.”

“we both fitted. If our corners were not rubbed off they were at least pulled in. But deep in us both was something that made us require more for happiness. I didn't know what I wanted”

“People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

“It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords.”

“Want any of this stuff? Jordan?... Nick?"I didn't answer.Nick?" he asked again.What?"Want any?"No... I just remembered that today's my birthday."I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.”

“What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?” cried Daisy, “and the day after that, and the next thirty years?”