75 quotes
Isn’t Hollywood a dump — in the human sense of the word. A hideous town, pointed up by the insulting gardens of its rich, full of the human spirit at a new low of debasement.
I entertained on a cruising ship that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.
The Crack-Up (1945)
No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.
The Crack-Up (1936)
Idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them – their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.
Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane... There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.
Tender is the Night (1934)
The victor belongs to the spoils.
The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The Great Gatsby (1925)
It was an amazing predicament. He was, in one sense, the richest man that ever lived — and yet was he worth anything at all?
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
Either you think — or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
Tender is the Night (1934)
It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.
All life was weather, a waiting through the hot where events had no significance for the cool that was soft and caressing like a woman's hand on a tired forehead.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase— 'I love you. (From: The Offshore Pirate)
'Look here, old sport, [...] what's your opinion of me, anyhow?' A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves.
The Great Gatsby (1925)
"Jelly-bean" is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular — I am idling, I have idled, I will idle.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
You're a historian. Tell me if there are any bath-tubs in history. I think they've been frightfully neglected.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
He doesn't believe that public swimming-pools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world; moreover, he takes a drink whenever he feels like it.
This Side of Paradise (1920)
How strange to have failed as a social creature — even criminals do not fail that way — they are the law's "Loyal Opposition," so to speak. But the insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read.
I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking.
The Crack-Up (1936)
There had been a war fought and won and the great city of the conquering people was crossed with triumphal arches and vivid with thrown flowers of white, red, and rose.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades — a small town on the Mississippi River — for several generations.
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)