I was haunted always by my other life-my drab room in the Bronx, my square foot of the subway, my fixation upon the day's letter from Alabama-would it come and what would it say?-my shabby suits, my poverty, and love. While my friends were launching decently into life I had muscled my inadequate bark into midstream... I was a failure-mediocre at advertising work and unable to get started as a writer. Hating the city, I got roaring, weeping drunk on my last penny and went home.
F. Scott FitzgeraldIn a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.
F. Scott FitzgeraldSome men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.
F. Scott FitzgeraldYou donโt know what a trial it is to be โlike me. I've got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me.
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 Fitzgerald