Who has not heard of F. Scott Fitzgerald? His novel The Great Gatsby is one of the most popular titles out there. I think it was also the first of his works I read; otherwise, it was his debut novel, This Side of Paradise. Last year, I was finally able to complete reading all of his novels, at least the four that were completed and published during his lifetime. His sophomore novel, The Beautiful and Damned was part of my 2022 Top 22 Reading List and the final piece. The story of Anthony Patch and his young bride, Gloria Gilbert is parallel to the story of Fitzgerald’s romance with Zelda; all of his novels borrowed elements from his life. It was also an evocative portrait of the Roaring 20s, an era Fitzgerald vividly captured through his works. The Beautiful and Damned is also a lyrical work, brimming with quotable passages and lines; in this quotable quotes update, I have rounded up some of these quotes.
Do check out my complete review of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s sophomore novel by clicking here.
“She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one – the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“What a feeble thing intelligence is, with its short steps, its waverings, its pacings back and forth, its disastrous retreats! Intelligence is a mere instrument of circumstances. There are people who say that intelligence must have built the universe – why, intelligence never built a steam engine! Circumstances built a steam engine. Intelligence is little more than a short foot-rule by which we measure the infinite achievements of Circumstances.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“There was one of his lonelinesses coming, one of those times when he walked the streets or sat, aimless and depressed, biting a pencil at his desk. It was a self-absorption with no comfort, a demand for expression with no outlet, a sense of time rushing by, ceaselessly and wastefully – assuaged only by that conviction that there was nothing to waste, because all efforts and attainments were equally valueless.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“Routine comes down like twilight on a harsh landscape, softening it until it is tolerable. The complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn nothing from the past with which to face the future – so we cease to be impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is ethically true by fine margins, we substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity, we value safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic. It is left to the few to be persistently concerned with the nuances of relationships – and even this few only in certain hours especially set aside for the task.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“And that taught me you can’t have anything, you can’t have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It’s like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it – but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you’ve got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“The breathless idyl of their engagement gave way, first, to the intense romance of the more passionate relationship. The breathless idyl left them, fled on to other lovers; they looked around one day it and it was gone, how, they scarcely knew. Had either of them lost the other in the days of the idyl, the love lost would have been ever to the loser that dim desire without fulfillment which stands back of all life. But magic must hurry on, and the lovers remain…”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bight and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third–before long the best lines cancel out – and the secret is exposed at last; the panes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such famous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true.”