The Great Gatsby love quotes give a deeper understanding of the love theme.
One of the things that makes The Great Gatsby so special is its beautiful prose.
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses his lyrical writing style to capture both the highs and lows of love.
The Great Gatsby Quotes With Page Numbers
The Great Gatsby Love Theme
The Great Gatsby is a classic novel that explores the theme of love in various forms. The unrequited love that Gatsby has for Daisy is a central theme of the book.
Nick Carraway describes Gatsby’s feelings towards Daisy as something that “no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Chapter 5, Page 60). Gatsby’s love for Daisy is so intense that he will do anything to win her back, even if it means sacrificing his life.
The theme of love in The Great Gatsby is also explored through the character of Tom Buchanan. Tom is married to Daisy but has an affair with Myrtle Wilson.
This extramarital affair represents a love based on physical desire rather than true emotional connection. Tom explains, “I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time” (Chapter 7).
Daisy’s feelings are more complicated. At one point, she tells Gatsby, “I love you now—isn’t that enough?” (Chapter 7, Page 82). However, she is also married to Tom Buchanan, whom she does not love.
Gatsby confronts Tom and tells him, “Your wife doesn’t love you. She’s never loved you. She loves me” (Chapter 7, Page 74). Despite her conflicting feelings, Daisy ultimately chooses to stay with Tom, leaving Gatsby heartbroken.
Nick Carraway also experiences love throughout the book. He describes feeling a “sort of tender curiosity” towards Jordan Baker and later admits that he is “angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.” (Chapter 9, Page 108).
Their relationship ends due to their different values, and she reveals she’s engaged to another man.
The Great Gatsby also explores the romanticized version of love, as seen in Nick’s description of the officer looking at Daisy in a way that “every young girl wants to be looked at sometime” (Chapter 4, Page 48).
This idealized version of love contrasts with the harsh realities of relationships, as seen in the characters’ dysfunctional relationships.
Overall, The Great Gatsby portrays love as a complex and often painful experience, with characters experiencing unrequited love, conflicting feelings, and the harsh realities of relationships. These quotes from the book highlight the intensity and complexity of the love theme throughout the novel.
The Great Gatsby Love Quotes With Page Numbers
“But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 11
“Her gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 12
“I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He is singing away… It’s romantic, isn’t it Tom?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 15
“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 3, Page 38
“…and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Jordan Baker (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 3, Page 39
“The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Chapter 4, Page 48
“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Chapter 5, Page 54
“He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an over-wound clock.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Jay Gatsby (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 58
“He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 58
“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. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. 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.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Jay Gatsby (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 60
“He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house – just as if it were five years ago.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 6, Page 69
“He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 6, Page 69, 70
“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. 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 like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Jay Gatsby and Daisy (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 6, Page 70
“Ah,” she cried, “you look so cool.”
Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.
You always look so cool,” she repeated.
She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Daisy Buchanan to Jay Gatsby), Chapter 7, Page 74
“‘Your wife doesn’t love you,’ said Gatsby. ‘She’s never loved you. She loves me.’”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Jay Gatsby), Chapter 7, Page 74
“Daisy, that’s all over now,” he said earnestly. “It doesn’t matter any more. Just tell him the truth — that you never loved him — and it’s all wiped out forever.” She looked at him blindly.
“Why — how could I love him — possibly?”
“You never loved him.”
She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing —and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now. It was too late.
“I never loved him,” she said, with perceptible reluctance.
“Not at Kapiolani?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“No.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, and Tom Buchanan), Chapter 7, Page 82
“‘Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now—isn’t that enough?’”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Daisy Buchanan to Jay Gatsby), Chapter 7, Page 82
“I did love him once — but I loved you too.”
Gatsby’s eyes opened and closed.
“You loved me TOO?” he repeated.
“Even that’s a lie,” said Tom savagely. “She didn’t know you were alive. Why — there’re things between Daisy and me that you’ll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, and Tom Buchanan), Chapter 7, Page 82
“Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,” she admitted in a pitiful voice. “It wouldn’t be true”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Daisy Buchanan), Chapter 7, Page 82
“And what’s more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Tom Buchanan), Chapter 7, Page 82
“You’re crazy!” he exploded. “I can’t speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn’t know Daisy then — and I’ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that’s a…lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 84
“It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 8, Page 92
“They had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 8, Page 92
“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. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her. . . . Well, there I was, ‘way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 8, Pages 92, 93
“all the time something within her was crying for a decision.
She wanted her life shaped now, immediately — and the decision must be made by some force — of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality — that was close at hand”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Daisy (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 8, Page 93
“She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Daisy (Character: Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 8, Page 93
“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Characters: Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway), Chapter 9, Page 108
How does Gatsby represent love?
Gatsby represents love as an intense and all-consuming emotion but is also tied up in his obsession with wealth and status. His love for Daisy is the driving force behind his actions in the novel, but it is also a love that is ultimately unattainable due to their class differences and his always wanting more.
Who is the true love in The Great Gatsby?
The concept of true love in The Great Gatsby is subjective. While Gatsby is often seen as the character who embodies love, it is questionable whether his love for Daisy is genuine or an obsession with the idea of her and the status she represents. Ultimately, the novel portrays the destructive nature of love and the consequences that come with it.
What does Daisy say she loves Gatsby quote?
In Chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan tells Jay Gatsby, “I love you now—isn’t that enough?” in response to Gatsby’s wanting more from their relationship. This quote shows that while Daisy may love Gatsby, it may not be enough for him as he is obsessed with her and wants more from their relationship.
Did Daisy really love Gatsby?
Daisy claims to love both Gatsby and Tom equally, but it can be argued that Gatsby’s love for Daisy is more intense and tied up in an obsession with her wealth and status.
While Daisy may have had some genuine feelings for Gatsby, her actions and choices suggest that her love for him was not enough to choose him over Tom. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether Daisy truly loved Gatsby definitively.
Why is Gatsby so in love with Daisy?
Gatsby is in love with Daisy because she represents wealth and a better life to him. This is shown through his famous quote, “Her voice is full of money.” While Gatsby may have used Daisy as motivation to improve himself, his love for her is ultimately tied up in an obsession with her wealth and status rather than purely based on true love.