The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that explores various themes, including love, wealth, and social class.
The quotes about love in The Great Gatsby are particularly poignant and reveal a lot about the characters and their relationships. Here are some characteristics of these quotes:
- Passionate: Many of the quotes about love in The Great Gatsby are filled with intense passion and longing. Characters often express their love in grandiose terms, with lots of metaphor and imagery.
Example: “He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s love for Daisy.
- Idealistic: Love in The Great Gatsby is often idealized, and characters hold their romantic relationships to impossibly high standards. This can lead to disappointment and disillusionment when reality fails to live up to their expectations.
Example: “Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!” – Jay Gatsby, insisting that he can recreate his past romance with Daisy.
- Obsessive: The characters in The Great Gatsby often become obsessed with their love interests, to the point of ignoring their own well-being and the well-being of others. This can lead to tragic consequences.
Example: “I love you now – isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.” – Gatsby to Daisy, insisting that his love for her should be enough to win her back.
- Unrequited: The Great Gatsby also explores the pain of unrequited love, as characters pine for someone who does not feel the same way. This can lead to feelings of sadness, loneliness, and rejection.
Example: “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy, expressing her disillusionment with love and the limited opportunities available to women.
Overall, the quotes about love in The Great Gatsby are complex and nuanced, exploring the highs and lows of romantic relationships in a time of great social upheaval and change.
We have many such quotes from this iconic early-20th century American novel in this article.
Let’s take a look.
Great Gatsby Quotes About Love
Here are some Great Gatsby quotes about love:
- “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” – Jay Gatsby
- “I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self-respect. And it’s these things I’d believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all she should be.” – Nick Carraway, speaking about Jordan Baker
- “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. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby and Daisy’s first kiss
- “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” – Nick Carraway, describing his feelings about Gatsby’s parties
- “I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s love for Daisy
- “I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too.” – Jay Gatsby
- “She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.” – Nick Carraway, describing Daisy’s feelings for Gatsby
- “And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.” – Nick Carraway
- “He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths – so that he could ‘come over’ some afternoon to a stranger’s garden.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s desire to be close to Daisy
- “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.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s hopes for his reunion with Daisy
- “The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.” – Nick Carraway, describing Daisy’s voice
- “It takes two to make an accident.” – Nick Carraway, describing the complicated nature of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship
- “I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- “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. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s feelings for Daisy
- “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” – Jordan Baker
- “I don’t want to live without you, and I’m never going to let you go again.” – Jay Gatsby
- “She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby – nothing.” – Nick Carraway, describing the end of Gatsby and Daisy’s affair
- “He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s desire to recapture his lost love
- “They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” – Nick Carraway to Gatsby, reassuring him of his worthiness of Daisy
- “I wish I had done everything on earth with you.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” – Jordan Baker
- “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s restlessness in his love for Daisy
- “I’m sorry about the clock,” she said. “It’s an old clock,” I told her idiotically.” – Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker, making small talk
- “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too.” – Jay Gatsby
- He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s love for Daisy
- “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered ‘Listen,’ a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.” – Nick Carraway, describing Daisy
- “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world.” – Nick Carraway
- “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” – Jordan Baker
- “It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.” – Nick Carraway
- “There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of the machines that registers earthquakes tens of thousands of miles away.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby
- “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you really angry. You always look as if you’d just come from a nice place.” – Daisy Buchanan to Gatsby
- “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” – Jordan Baker
- “I knew that when I kissed this girl I would be forever wed to her.” – Jay Gatsby
- “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.” – Nick Carraway
- “And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams.” – Nick Carraway
- “He smiled understandingly – much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s smile
- “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” – Nick Carraway
- “I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s disillusionment with his love for Daisy
- “The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.” – Nick Carraway, describing Daisy’s voice
- “I’m not a romantic person, but I love the idea of being in love.” – Jordan Baker
- “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow…I want to get away from it all.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s disillusionment with Daisy
- “Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!” – Jay Gatsby, insisting that he can recreate his past romance with Daisy
- “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” – Nick Carraway
- “It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s voice
- “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” – Nick Carraway
- “I would have loved him if he hadn’t been poor. But he was a good sport.” – Daisy Buchanan, speaking about Gatsby
- “I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” – Jay Gatsby, speaking about his love for Daisy
- “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” – Daisy Buchanan
- “It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people.” – Nick Carraway
- “His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. 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.” – Nick Carraway, describing Gatsby’s feelings for Daisy
Final Word – Great Gatsby Quotes About Love
The Great Gatsby is a timeless classic that continues to captivate readers with its vivid portrayal of the Jazz Age and its exploration of timeless themes such as love, wealth, and social class.
The quotes about love in The Great Gatsby offer a fascinating insight into the complex and often tumultuous romantic relationships between the characters.
From the idealism and passion of Gatsby’s love for Daisy to the disillusionment and heartbreak that ultimately marks their affair, the quotes about love in this novel are poignant and profound.
The Great Gatsby remains a masterpiece of American literature, and the quotes about love within its pages continue to inspire and resonate with readers today.
Related
- Quotes About Love
- Quotes About Love for Him
- Quotes About Love for Her
- Quotes About Self-Love
- I Love You Quotes
