Amory Blaine quotes

a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken....

“I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all.”

I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

There is no more dangerous gift to posterity than a few cleverly turned platitudes.

I think four men have discovered Paris to one that discovered God.

To hold a man a woman has to appeal to the worst in him.

No, I’m romantic—a sentimental person thinks things will last—a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.

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

You’re not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not

at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4 P.M.

You’re a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your imagination.

Poverty may have been beautiful once, but it’s rotten now. It’s the ugliest thing in the world. It’s essentially cleaner to be corrupt and rich than it is to be innocent and poor.

The very qualities I love you for are the ones that will always make you a failure.

One thing I know. If living isn’t a seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game.

There is no virtue of unselfishness that I cannot use. I can make sacrifices, be charitable, give to a friend, endure for a friend, lay down my life for a friend—all because these things may be the best possible expression of myself; yet I have not one drop of the milk of human kindness.

Don’t worry about that; for you not posing may be the biggest pose of all.

He found something that he wanted, had always wanted and always would want—not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensable

Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while.

No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.

I know I’m not a regular fellow, yet I loathe anybody else that isn’t.

Amory found it rather fascinating to feel that any popular girl he met before eight he might quite possibly kiss before twelve.

He wanted to kiss her, kiss her a lot, because then he knew he could leave in the morning and not care.

Don’t let yourself feel worthless; often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself

She won’t marry him, but a girl doesn’t have to marry a man to break his heart.

I’m so happy that I’m frightened. Wouldn’t it be awful if this was—was the high point?...