The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

You have two tasks to complete on this page. First, read and try to connect with what you have read in the novel. Second – take the Quiz by hitting the “Let’s Play” button at the end of the 10 Thematic Quotes.

Task 1 – Thematic Quotes

1. The American Dream

• “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”
• “I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
• “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.”
• “His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”
• “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”
• “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
• “It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.”
• “You can’t repeat the past.”
• “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”
• “He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”

2. Class and Social Stratification

• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
• “I lived at West Egg, the—well, the least fashionable of the two.”
• “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife.”
• “Across the courtesy bay, the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water.”
• “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”
• “He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s.”
• “It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
• “That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
• “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
• “You live in West Egg. I know somebody there.”

3. The Illusion vs. Reality

• “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
• “He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.”
• “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
• “There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind.”
• “I wasn’t actually in love, but felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
• “She was incurably dishonest.”
• “I’m Gatsby.”
• “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.”
• “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.'”
• “He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly.”

4. The Hollowness of the Upper Class

• “Her voice is full of money.”
• “They’re a rotten crowd…You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
• “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”
• “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
• “They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
• “He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”
• “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
• “Her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery.”
• “All the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
• “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

5. The Corruption of the American Dream

• “He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty.”
• “You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.”
• “Gatsby’s house was still empty when I left—the grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine.”
• “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.”
• “He was running down like an overwound clock.”
• “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”
• “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”
• “The rich get richer and the poor get—children.”
• “It was a strange coincidence, but it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”

6. The Inescapability of the Past

• “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
• “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”
• “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before.”
• “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.'”
• “The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be utterly submerged.”
• “You can’t repeat the past.”
• “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”
• “I did love him once—but I loved you too.”
• “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.”
• “The green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”

7. Moral Decay of Society

• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
• “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”
• “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
• “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”
• “All the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
• “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
• “I’d like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around.”
• “He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.”
• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy.”
• “Her voice is full of money.”

8. The Futility of the American Dream

• “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”
• “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”
• “His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”
• “The rich get richer and the poor get—children.”
• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
• “He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.”
• “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife.”
• “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”
• “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
• “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.”

9. The Power of Money

• “Her voice is full of money.”
• “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
• “I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”
• “He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”
• “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
• “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
• “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
• “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife.”
• “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
• “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

10. Love and Relationships

• “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.'”
• “I did love him once—but I loved you too.”
• “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
• “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.”
• “She was the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known.”
• “Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space.”
• “It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes.”
• “They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder.”
• “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear.”
• “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before.”

Task 2 – Quiz

Here are 20 multiple-choice questions for The Great Gatsby that focus on themes and global issues. Each question includes four options, with only one correct answer.