F. Scott Fitzgerald: Herring

“He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.”

“She smiled at him, making sure that the smile gathered up everything inside her and directed it toward him, making him a profound promise of herself for so little, for the beat of a response, the assurance of a complimentary vibration in him.”

“Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind?”

“Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

“You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to makes such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

“We haven’t met for many years, said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be.
"Five years next November."
The automatic quality set us all back at least another minute.”

“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 for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

“… 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”

“She was dazzling-- alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance.”

“When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm”

“She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.”

“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”

“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. - The Great Gatsby.”

“A stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words.”

“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.”

“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.”

“A sense of responsibility would spoil her. She's too pretty.”

“Her philosophy is carpe diem for herself and laissez faire for others.”