London’s best: Great Gatsbyisms

“The rich are different from you and me,” said F Scott Fitzgerald to his pal Ernest Hemingway. We say it’s the way you wrote ’em, Scott. As the new film of his novel hits our screens you won’t be able to move for the bon mots of Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Nick and Jay. Here are just some of the fine lines that make Gatsby great.

Emilie McMeekan18 April 2013

1. “The greatest thing a girl can be in this world is a fool, a beautiful little fool.”

Daisy Buchanan on her daughter

2. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Nick Carraway on the Buchanans

3. “Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it.

Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway on Daisy

4. “Ah,” she cried, “you look so cool.” Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table. “You always look so cool,” she repeated. She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw.

Daisy on Jay

5. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The closing line of The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald