F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes

F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American novelist and short story writer, considered one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. His works, including "The Great Gatsby," captured the spirit of the Jazz Age and explored themes of wealth, love, and the American Dream. He remains a defining voice of his generation and an enduring influence on modern literature. Here are 480 of his quotes:

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

There are no second acts in American lives.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The victor belongs to the spoils.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane... There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Let us show our friendship for a man when he is living and not after he is dead.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.

F. Scott Fitzgerald