“The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round.”
"O Russet Witch!"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
Context: The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel colors, then in dull grays and browns, but perplexing and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the merry-go-rounds of childhood or adolescence; as never, surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters of youth. For most men and women these thirty years are taken up with a gradual withdrawal from life, a retreat first from a front with many shelters, those myriad amusements and curiosities of youth, to a line with less, when we peel down our ambitions to one ambition, our recreations to one recreation, our friends to a few to whom we are anaesthetic; ending up at last in a solitary, desolate strong point that is not strong, where the shells now whistle abominably, now are but half-heard as, by turns frightened and tired, we sit waiting for death.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald 411
American novelist and screenwriter 1896–1940Related quotes
Lady Bracknell, Act III
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
[Life, Death and the Monster - Numberphile, 9 May 2014, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOCe5HUObD4]
“Trayvon Martin could have been me thirty five years ago.”
Remarks regarding the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Trial of George Zimmerman (2013). Source: Barack Obama: "Remarks on the Verdict in State of Florida v. George Zimmerman," July 19, 2013. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=103873&st=&st1= For the background of this quote see this source.
2013
Context: Trayvon Martin could have been me thirty five years ago. And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there is lot of pain about what happened. I think it is important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at the issue through a set of experiences and a history, that doesn’t go away. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they are shopping at a department store. That includes me. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off.
Letter to Farkas Bolyai, on his son János Bolyai's 1832 publishings on non-Euclidean geometry.
Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 190.
“If I had known this, I would've put that patch on thirty-five years earlier.”
1969 Academy Awards speech for Best Actor in True Grit.
Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VII, p. 374
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)
