I
Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.
Why it was chosen
To withhold judgment is to leave a little room for hope. People are rarely only what their worst moments make them seem.
Selected Passages
The Great Gatsby selected passages.
These sentences were chosen for Today's Passage: lines worth reading slowly, returning to, and turning into copywork.
From Today's Passage
Sentences selected with care.
35 of 35 passages
I
And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
Why it was chosen
A bitter wish can carry the shape of the world that made it necessary. Beneath the glamour, there is sorrow over what women are taught to survive.
I
The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.
Why it was chosen
An ordinary night can suddenly feel charged with promise. Its beauty is tender because disillusion has not yet fully entered the room.
I
Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.
Why it was chosen
A distant hope can be almost invisible and still govern an entire life. The smallest light may become powerful when longing gathers around it.
II
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
Why it was chosen
To be enchanted and repelled at once is to stand honestly before the world. Fascination often begins in that uneasy doubleness.
III
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life.
Why it was chosen
A rare smile can make a person feel wholly understood for a moment. Its magic lies in offering reassurance without asking for proof.
III
It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour.
Why it was chosen
Some gestures feel intimate because they seem to include the whole world and then choose one person. Charm is powerful when it makes attention feel like shelter.
III
I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.
Why it was chosen
Curiosity is tender before it becomes possession. Some feelings begin not as love, but as a gentle leaning toward another life.
III
The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something—most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don’t in the beginning—and one day I found what it was.
Why it was chosen
Indifference often hides something more vulnerable underneath. The masks people wear eventually reveal the very thing they were meant to conceal.
IV
The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
Why it was chosen
A city looks newly born when hope is still fresh enough to meet it. Promise shines brightest before experience begins to name its cost.