The Crack-Up is a collection of essays by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It includes previously unpublished letters and notes, along with the three essays Fitzgerald originally wrote for Esquire magazine, which were first published in 1936. After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Edmund Wilson compiled and edited this anthology, first published by New Directions in 1945.
“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up
Notebook E: Epigrams, Wisecracks, and Jokes https://books.google.com/books?id=NIhKY8SpAE4C&q=%22You%20don%27t%20write%20because%20you%20want%20to%20say%20something%3B%20you%20write%20because%20you%27ve%20got%20something%20to%20say.%22&pg=PA123#v=onepage, edited by Edmund Wilson (1945) <br class="br">Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up
Source: Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
Context: Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.
“In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up
Variant: In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning.
Source: Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
“No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up
Notebook E: Epigrams, Wisecracks, and Jokes http://books.google.com/books?id=NIhKY8SpAE4C&q=%22No+grand+idea+was+ever+born+in+a+conference+but+a+lot+of+foolish+ideas+have+died+there%22&pg=PA123#v=onepage <br class="br">Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
