Quotes About Ambition

Why did you marry her? Physical attraction. Ambition. Everyone agrees she's the ideal wife for a painter. Loneliness, missing Sebastian. You loved him, didn't you? Oh yes. He was the frontrunner. Julia understood.

But he hated to be sober. It made him conscious of the people around him, of that air of struggle, of greedy ambition, of hope more sordid than despair, of incessant passage up or down…. There was kindliness about intoxication – there was the indescribable gloss and glamour it gave, like the memories of ephemeral and faded evenings

He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

it was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being

Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired to that June night.

It eluded us then, but that's no matter —tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning——

But he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously - eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning ---

His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.

Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

And lastly from that period I remember riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky; I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again.

I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him. [- Nick Carroway]

I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry.

Can't repeat the past? he cried incredulously. Why of course you can! He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over again.

He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths - so that he could 'come over' some afternoon to a stranger's garden.

It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.

no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?

He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.

There's no substitute for will. Sometimes you have to fake will when you don't feel it at all.

He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and café, wearing a dress suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping away the dull hours of the forenoon.