i was perhaps an egotist in youth, but i soon found it made me morbid to think too much about myself - F. Scott Fitzgerald

I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him. [- Nick Carroway]

Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you — it's a wall that an active you runs up against.

Long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.