Oh, Scott, for people like you and me the world can be a wonderful place. The sky's as blue as it is for the giants, the friends a...re as warm.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid;... He shall live a man forbid; Weary sev'n-nights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak and pine; Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
St. Joseph in 1859 had the bustling appearance of a great fair, with excited travelers preparing to make the plains journey in pra...irie schooners, "rickety old farm wagons," and even small two-wheeled push carts. many bore such mottoes as--"Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady," "I Dare," "For Pike's Peak Ho." Before long many were to return, disappointed in their search for gold, hungry, ragged, and dispirited, their brave wagon boasts changed to "Prodigal Son," "Pike's Hell," "A Fool Is Born."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The work is rather too light, bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long<...br />chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique of Walter Scott, or a history of Buonaparte, or anything that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is most appalling in an F. Scott Fitzgerald book is that it is peopleless fiction: Fitzgerald writes about spectral, muscled ...suits; dresses, hats, and sleeves which have some sort of vague, libidinous throb. These are plainly the product of sickness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympu...s. No degree of affection need invade this religion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The death of John Barrymore made us think again for a minute of F. Scott Fitzgerald. They were very different men: a lot alike. Un...doubtedly, they both worked hard, but there was the same sense of a difficult technique easily mastered (too easily perhaps); there was the same legend of great physical magnetism, working incessantly for its own destruction; there was the same need for public confession, either desperate or sardonic; and there was always a good deal of time wasted, usually accompanied by the sweet smell of grapes. We have seen Scott Fitzgerald when everything he said was a childish parody of his own talent, and the last time we saw John Barrymore he was busy with a sick and humiliating parody of his. The similarity probably ends there. Up to the day he died, we believe, Fitzgerald still kept his original and eager devotion to his profession, along, we like to think, with the strict confidence that he might still achieve the strict perfection that was so often almost his. Barrymore, on the other hand, had given up long ago.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, who follows blind instinct, strives to duplicate t...he reality of nature. The first one elevates art to its highest peak; the second one lowers it to its basest level.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »