The Great Gatsby chapter 1 quotes introduce the characters and themes.
In Chapter 1, Nick Carraway recounts the events of the summer he spent in the East,
Through a series of flashbacks, he gives clues to the fate of Jay Gatsby and the American Dream.
The Great Gatsby Quotes With Page Numbers
The Great Gatsby Quotes Chapter 1 With Page Numbers
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway quoting his father), Chapter 1, Page 7
“the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 7
“I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 7
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Gatsby (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 7
“Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 7
“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 7
“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 7
“The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“Instead of being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe – so I decided to go East and learn the bond business.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“Now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the ‘well-rounded man.’ This isn’t just an epigram – life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 8
“Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 9
“one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty−one that everything afterward savors of anti−climax.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Tom Buchanan (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 9
“I lived at West Egg, the – well, the least fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard … My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires – all for eighty dollars a month.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 9
“Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 9
“Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven – a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anticlimax.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 9
“Why they came East I don’t know. . . . This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Daisy and Tom Buchanan (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 10
“Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body – he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage – a cruel body.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Tom Buchanan (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 10
“His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked – and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Tom Buchanan (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 10
“The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 11
“The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it – indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having” disturbed her by coming in.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Jordan Baker (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 11
“Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 11
“At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again – the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a tribute from me.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Jordan Baker (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 11
“I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered ‘Listen,’ a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Daisy Buchanan (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 11
“The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise–she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression–then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
‘I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.’
She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about Daisy (Nick Carraway as the narrator and Daisy Buchanan), Chapter 1, Page 11
“Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Daisy Buchanan), Chapter 1, Page 13
“Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
‘Look!’ she complained. ‘I hurt it.’
We all looked – the knuckle was black and blue.
‘You did it, Tom,’ she said accusingly. ‘I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a – ‘
‘I hate that word hulking,’ objected Tom crossly, ‘even in kidding.’
‘Hulking,’ insisted Daisy.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Daisy and Tom Buchanan), Chapter 1, Page 13
“‘You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,’ I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. ‘Can’t you talk about crops or something?’
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway), Chapter 1, Page 13
‘Civilization’s going to pieces. I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things…The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved…It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.’
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Tom Buchanan), Chapter 1, Page 13
“For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened – then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 14
‘It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. “All right,” I said, “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”’
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Daisy Buchanan) Chapter 1, Page 16
“I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Daisy Buchanan) Chapter 1, Page 16
“I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything…Sophisticated — God, I’m sophisticated! ”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Daisy Buchanan), Chapter 1, Page 16
“Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the ‘Saturday Evening Post’ – the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 16
“We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Daisy Buchanan), Chapter 1, Page 17
“As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 18
Daisy Buchanan quotaions and Page Numbers
“The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone — fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him…..But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone — he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward — and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 18
Learn more about the hidden themes of The Great Gatsby, chapter 1.
See how the wind represents characters’ moods and the unglamorous way the Buchanans live behind closed doors.