Tom Buchanan is one of the main characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby.
He’s a rich and powerful man married to Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby’s former lover.
Tom is a large and imposing man with a “cruel body.” He’s often described as insensitive and brutish but has some redeeming qualities.
Despite his flaws, Tom Buchanan’s quotes are some of the most memorable in the novel. Here are just a few of our favorites:
The Great Gatsby Quotes With Page Numbers
Who is Tom Buchanan?
Tom Buchanan is a major character in The Great Gatsby. He is a large, powerful, wealthy, and arrogant man who believes everything is owed to him.
He’s married to Daisy but treats her more as a prize than a wife, having had multiple affairs throughout their marriage. Tom is a former football player at Yale and believes himself to be superior to the other men around him.
He is cruel, treats others with contempt, and lacks self-awareness and narcissistic tendencies.
Tom Buchanan is a problematic character who symbolizes wealth, power, and privilege in the novel and is ultimately an unlikeable man due to his selfishness and arrogance.
Tom Buchanan Quotes With Page Numbers in The Great Gatsby
Tom Buchanan quotes with chapters and page numbers.
1. “Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently.
“I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1, Page 13
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote reflects his deep-seated fear and racism towards those different from him, as seen in his mention of Goddard’s ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires.’
He believes it is up to the dominant race to maintain control and worries that other races will overthrow them.
Quotes From The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 With Page Numbers
2. “Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. 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.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1, Page 13
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote reflects his belief that the white race must be preserved and protected from non-white influences and competition.
He is using a book entitled “The Rise of the Colored Empires,” to back up his argument, claiming it is scientifically proven, but it is clear the book is a cover for racism.
3. “Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing
at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. 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, Chapter 1, Page 14
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote reveals his beliefs about race and the idea that it is up to those of the “dominant race” to maintain control and power over other races. He sees it as a competition and their responsibility to stay on top.
4. “This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and ——”
After an infinitesimal hesitation, he gave Daisy a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization — oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1, Page 14
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote conveys his belief in the superiority of the white race and the idea that they are the only ones capable of creating and maintaining civilization.
He implies that Daisy, Nick, and himself are Nordics and thus superior to other races.
5. “Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1, Page 17
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote from ‘The Great Gatsby’ suggests that he is suspicious of Nick’s intentions with Daisy and wants to confront him about it.
The quote implies that Tom attempted to dominate Daisy by interrogating Nick about their relationship on the veranda.
6. “He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, about George Wilson, by Tom Buchanan, Chapter 2, Page 21
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote shows his arrogance and lack of empathy, as he belittles George Wilson without considering how his careless words can hurt another person.
This quote demonstrates how Tom is out of touch with reality, as he fails to recognize his life’s privilege and the struggles other people may face.
15 George Wilson Quotes With Page Numbers
7. “I’ve heard of making a garage out of a stable,” Tom was saying to Gatsby, “but I’m the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 74
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote displays his arrogance and superiority complex. He implies that his wealth and power enabled him to make something that others could not, which is a metaphor for his ability to adapt to any situation and come out on top.
This reveals his self-importance and his belief that his actions are above reproach.
8. “I don’t see the idea of going to town,” broke out Tom savagely. “Women get these notions in their heads ——”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 75
Meaning: This quote from The Great Gatsby highlights Tom Buchanan’s traditional views on gender roles and reveals his frustration when Daisy desires to go to town.
It demonstrates his patriarchal attitudes and the influence he believes he has on the women in his life.
9. “You think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 76
Meaning: Tom Buchanan displays his arrogance and insecurity with this question, hinting at his fear of being seen as inferior or unintelligent. His defensive attitude reveals his need for power and recognition.
10. “I’ve made a small investigation of this fellow,” he continued.“I could have gone deeper if I’d known ——”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 76
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote reveals his condescending attitude towards Gatsby and his determination to uncover his true identity, showing that he is willing to go to great lengths to prove that he is not as respectable as he claims.
11. “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, Chapter 7, Page 76
Meaning: Tom Buchanan tries to prove to Gatsby and Daisy that his love for Daisy is unconditional, even though he often strays. He implies that his infidelity is something he can’t help, but his love for Daisy never wavers.
Love Quotes From The Great Gatsby
12. “She is not leaving me, certainly not for a common swindler.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 83
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote highlights his arrogance, as he refuses to accept the possibility of his wife leaving him for someone he considers below him. He views himself as superior and sees anyone not in his social class as unworthy and inferior.
13. “I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 83
Meaning: Tom’s quote reveals his deep-seated class anxiety and jealousy. He is quick to judge Gatsby and his illicit activities as soon as he meets him—presumably because Gatsby is perceived as a social climber who might take away his privileged lifestyle.
Tom’s statement also shows his arrogance. He thinks his hunch is correct and that he is superior to Gatsby.
14. “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, Chapter 7, Page 84
Meaning: Tom is trying to prove that he and Daisy have had a true and lasting love and that Gatsby’s claims of Daisy’s affection are untrue.
He also tries to show that Gatsby had no way of knowing Daisy in the past and, therefore, wouldn’t be able to know her feelings now.
15. “Want any of this stuff? Jordan?… Nick?”
I didn’t answer.
Nick?” he asked again.
What?”
Want any?”
No… I just remembered that today’s my birthday.”
I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7, Page 84
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote highlights his arrogant and dismissive attitude as he offers gifts to Jordan and Nick with disregard for Nick’s birthday and the significance of the new decade ahead of him.
He dismisses Nick’s feelings, demonstrating his lack of consideration for others.
Quotes From Nick Carraway In The Great Gatsby
Quotes From Jordan Baker With Page Numbers
16. “I told him the truth,” he said.
“He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren’t in he tried to force his way up-stairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn’t told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house ——” He broke off defiantly. “What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran overMyrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 9, Page 109
Meaning: Tom Buchanan’s quote from The Great Gatsby reveals how he framed Jay Gatsby to get rid of him. He admits to Nick Carraway that he told George Wilson the truth, knowing it would lead to Gatsby’s death.
This shows Tom’s willingness to go to any lengths to protect himself and his marriage to Daisy, even if it means destroying another person.
Quotes of Tom Buchanan Being Arrogant
“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 anti-climax. […] They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. 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 Tom and Daisy Buchanan (Nick Carraway as the narrator), Chapter 1, Pages 7, 8
“He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, by Tom Buchanan about George Wilson, Chapter 2, Page 21
“You think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 76
“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, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 82
“She is not leaving me, certainly not for a common swindler.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 83
“I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 83
Tom Buchanan Racist Quotes
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently.
“I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 1, Page 13
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. 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.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 1, Page 13
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing
at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. 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 14
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and ——”
After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “— And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization — oh,science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 1, Page 14
Quotes From Tom Buchanan About Gatsby
“About Gatsby! No, I haven’t. I said I’d been making a small investigation of his past.”
“And you found he was an Oxford man,” said Jordan helpfully.
“An Oxford man!” He was incredulous. “Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker about Gatsby), Chapter 7, Page 76
“She is not leaving me, certainly not for a common swindler.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 83
“I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 83
“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
Jay Gatsby Quotes With Page Numbers
Tom Buchanan Quotes About Daisy
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and ——”
After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “— And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization — oh,science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 1, Page 14
“I don’t see the idea of going to town,” broke out Tom savagely. “Women get these notions in their heads ——”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 75
“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, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 76
“She is not leaving me, certainly not for a common swindler.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 7, Page 83
“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
How does Nick describe Tom quote?
“Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. 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, Nick Carraway, Chapter 1, Page 10
What does Tom Buchanan symbolize?
Tom Buchanan symbolizes American upper-class society’s power, privilege, and entitlement and the selfishness and arrogance that can come with it.
How did Tom Buchanan get his money quote?
“His family were enormously wealthy — even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway about Tom Buchanan, Chapter 1, Page 10
The Great Gatsby Quotes About Money With Page Numbers
Does Daisy love Tom quotes?
Daisy’s own words suggest that, at one point, she did love Tom: “I did love him once—but I loved you too” (Chapter 7, Page 82). Additionally, when Tom brings up a fond memory from early in their marriage, we see Daisy’s voice become less cold, showing that she still has some affection for him.
Why did Tom break Myrtle’s nose?
Tom angrily broke Myrtle’s nose, showing his violent and possessive nature. He was enraged at her mentioning Daisy’s name.
What does Tom tell Nick at the end?
At the end of Chapter 9, Tom confesses to Nick that he had insinuated to George that Gatsby was both his wife’s killer and her lover, sparking the murder.
“I told him the truth,” he said. “He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren’t in he tried to force his way up-stairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn’t told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house ——” He broke off defiantly. “What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran overMyrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Chapter 9, Page 109
Myrtle Wilson Quotes With Page Numbers
How does Tom represent masculinity?
Tom is portrayed as a strong, powerful figure with an aggressive demeanor and a cruel body capable of great physical strength. His physical description leaves no room for doubt that he is a very masculine figure.
Sources:
prepscholar.com/tom-buchanan-great-gatsby-character-analysis-quotes
bartleby.com/essay/Tom-Buchanan-Racist-Quotes
Goodreads The Great Gatsby Quotes
Jeremy Mortis, founder of Ageless Investing, applies a rigorous analytical approach (the AAM framework) to distill timeless wisdom and contextualized quotes from classic literature, saving you time while deepening understanding. Learn more about Jeremy’s unique background and methodology on his author bio page.