The Great Gatsby: Key Quotes

The Great Gatsby · Leaving Cert Comparative

A short bank of quotes worth learning, grouped by theme. Each one is exact, so you can drop it straight into an answer. Know the chapter and one line about why it matters.

You do not need fifty quotes for Paper 2. You need a dozen you can produce instantly and explain in your own words. Learn the line, learn the chapter, and learn the one thing each quote proves. The notes below tell you which theme each group serves, so you can match a quote to whatever the question throws at you. Keep your quoting short in the exam: a phrase or a single sentence, then your analysis.

The American Dream and Hope

These are the lines for Gatsby’s self-invention and his refusal to let go of the past. The first shows he chose to become Gatsby; the last two show the dream forever slipping out of reach. Together they let you argue that hope is both Gatsby’s gift and the thing that destroys him.

Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.Nick on Gatsby, Ch. 6

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”Gatsby, Ch. 6

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.Nick, Ch. 9

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.Nick, closing line, Ch. 9

Wealth, Class and Carelessness

Use these for the gap between old money, new money and the people left in the dust. The Valley of Ashes line sets the social cost of all the glamour; the shirts show new money trying to buy its way into Daisy’s world; the “careless people” verdict is where you should land any answer on class, because it names exactly what Fitzgerald is judging.

This is a valley of ashes, a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens.Nick, Ch. 2

“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such, such beautiful shirts before.”Daisy, Ch. 5

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, Ch. 9

Daisy, Love and Disillusion

Lines that show what Daisy really is, and what Gatsby refused to see. Her wish for her daughter tells you how she views her own world; Gatsby’s verdict that her voice is “full of money” is the moment he half-admits, without meaning to, that she and her wealth cannot be separated. Use these to argue that the woman Gatsby worships is not worth the worship.

“I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”Daisy on her daughter, Ch. 1

Her voice is full of money.Gatsby on Daisy, Ch. 7

Nick, Judgement and Narration

Frame your answer with Nick’s own position as the watcher who both admires and disapproves. His father’s advice at the start explains why Nick withholds judgement for so long; his shouted compliment near the end is the one time he drops it, and it tells you where the novel’s sympathy finally rests. These are gold for any question on narration or on how we are steered to feel about Gatsby.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”Nick’s father, Ch. 1

“They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”Nick to Gatsby, Ch. 8

Quick Links

Build these into full answers with the theme notes: The American Dream and Wealth and Class. Back to the Great Gatsby hub.