Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should decay too, and in that way they're preserved for a while in the few hearts like mine that react to them. Trying to preserve a century by keeping its relics up to date is like keeping a dying man alive by stimulants.
F. Scott FitzgeraldDear, don't think of getting out of bed yet. I've always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous.
F. Scott FitzgeraldThe only way to increase it is to cultivate your own garden. And the only thing that will help you is poetry, which is the most concentrated form of style.... I don't care how clever the other professor is, one can't raise a discussion of modern prose to anything above tea-table level.
F. Scott FitzgeraldThe truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of Godโa phrase which, if it means anything, means just thatโand he must be about His Fatherโs Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty.
F. Scott Fitzgerald