This Side of Paradise

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Dear, don’t think of getting out of bed yet. I’ve always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous.

go searching for sunshine.”

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

“But I hate to get anywhere by working for it.

accompanied by friend or book,

so he let himself go, discussed books by the dozens—books he had read, read about, books he had never heard of, rattling off lists of titles

Silences were becoming more frequent and more delicious.

“Why do I make lists?”

But she was the first fine woman he ever knew and one of the few good people who ever interested him.

“There you go—running through your catalogue of emotions in five seconds.”

CECILIA: Yes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you do. ROSALIND: Sometimes when I’ve felt particularly radiant I’ve thought, why should this be wasted on one man?

ROSALIND: Mother, I never think about money. MRS. CONNAGE: You never keep it long enough to think about it.

but a girl doesn’t have to marry a man to break his heart.

I suppose all great happiness is a little sad.

Marrying you would be a failure and I never fail

I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness—and I dread responsibility. I don’t want to think about pots and kitchens and brooms. I want to worry whether my legs will get slick and brown when I swim in the summer.

Beware of losing yourself in the personality of another being, man or woman.

Why are all the exciting things so uncomfortable,

“Very few things matter and nothing matters very much.”