“When I want something bad enough, common sense tells me to go and take it--and not get caught.”

“Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.”

“I want to give a really BAD party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there’s a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see.”

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

“The war spirit's getting into me again. I have a hundred years of Ohio love behind me and I'm going to bomb out this trench.”

“What was it? Why won't you tell me?""I don't want to break down your illusions.""My dear man, I have no illusions about you.""I mean illusions about yourself.”

“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.”