One hurries through, even though there's time; the past, the continent, is behind; the future is the glowing mouth in the side of the ship; the dim, turbulent alley is too confusedly the present.

The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.

One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?

There was one of his lonelinesses coming, one of those times when he walked the streets or sat, aimless and depressed, biting a pencil at his desk. It was a self-absorption with no comfort, a demand for expression with no outlet, a sense of time rushing by, ceaselessly and wastefully - assuaged only by that conviction that there was nothing to waste, because all efforts and attainments were equally valueless.

unloved women have no biographies-- they have histories

Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay.