The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

When I had finished the book I knew that no matter what Scott did, nor how he behaved, I must know it was like a sickness and be of any help I could to him and try to be a good friend. He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew. But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. But we were to find them out soon enough.

I felt very lonely when they were all there.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is

He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled.

How little we know of what there is to know.