The Great Gatsby (2013)

Tobey Maguire: Nick Carraway

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Quotes 

• Nick Carraway : You can't repeat the past.

  Jay Gatsby : Can't repeat the past?

  Nick Carraway : No...

  Jay Gatsby : Why, of course you can... of course you can.

• [first lines] 

  Nick Carraway : In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice. "Always try to see the best in people," he would say. As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgements. But even I have a limit.

• [last lines] 

  Nick Carraway : 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 - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

• Nick Carraway : Jay! They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.

  Nick Carraway : [Voice-over]  I was always glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever paid him.

• Nick Carraway : [narrating]  They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness.

• Nick Carraway : His Smile was one of those rare smiles that you may come across four or five times in life. It seem to understand you and believe in you just as you would love to be understood and believed in.

• Nick Carraway : Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.

• Tom Buchanan : Daisy, can't you see who this guy is, with his house and his parties and his fancy clothes? He is just a front for Wolfsheim, a gangster, to get his claws into respectable folk like Walter Chase.

  Jay Gatsby : The only respectable thing about you, old sport, is your money. Your money, that's it. Now I've just as much as you. That means we're equal.

  Tom Buchanan : Oh, no. No. We're different. I am. They are.

  [points to Daisy] 

  Tom Buchanan : She is. We're all different from you. You see, we were born different. It's in our blood. And nothing that you do or say or steal... or dream up can ever change that. A girl like Daisy...

  Jay Gatsby : [Knocks contents off bar-top & grabs Tom with a raised fist]  You shut up! Shut up! You shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

  Nick Carraway : [Voice-over]  Gatsby looked, in that moment, as if he had... killed a man.

• Nick Carraway : I expected him to be...

  Jordan Baker : Old and fat?

  Nick Carraway : Yes. Young men just don't drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island.

• Nick Carraway : I just remembered, today's my birthday.

  Tom Buchanan : Happy birthday.

  Nick Carraway : [narrating now]  Thirty. The promise of a decade of loneliness. The formidable stroke of 30 died away as Gatsby and Daisy drove on thought the cooling twilight - towards death.

• Daisy Buchanan : Open another window.

  Nick Carraway : There aren't any more.

  Daisy Buchanan : Then telephone for an axe.

• Jay Gatsby : If it wasn't for the mist, we could see the green light.

  Daisy Buchanan : What green light?

  Jay Gatsby : The one that burns all night at the end of your dock.

  Nick Carraway : [narrating]  Possibly, it had occurred to Gatsby that the colossal significance of that light had vanished forever. Now it was once again just a green light on a dock and his count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.

• Nick Carraway : Stocks reached record peaks, and Wall Street boomed a steady golden roar. The parties were bigger, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the ban on alcohol had backfired. Making the liquor cheaper. Wall Street was luring the young and ambitious, and I was one of them.

• Jay Gatsby : [while recklessly driving his yellow car]  Look here, Old Sport. What... What is your opinion of me, anyhow?

  Nick Carraway : My opinion?

  Jay Gatsby : Yes! Yes, your opinion. I don't want you to get the wrong impression from all these... from all these bizarre accusations you must be hearing. A pack of lies, I guarantee you. You've heard all the stories?

  Nick Carraway : Oh, well...

  Jay Gatsby : I will tell you God's truth. God's truth about myself. I am the son of some very wealthy people from the Middle West. Sadly, all of them are dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. You see, it's a family tradition.

  Nick Carraway : [narrating]  The way he spoke! No wonder people thought he was lying.

• Daisy Buchanan : I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything. I've had a very bad time, Nicky. I'm pretty cynical about everything.

  Nick Carraway : Ah. Your daughter, I suppose she talks and eats and everything?

  Daisy Buchanan : Pammy? Oh, yes. Listen, Nick, when she was born, Tom was God knows where... with God knows whom. And I asked the nurse if it was a boy or girl. And she said it was a girl and I wept, "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool. That's the best thing a girl in this world can be. A beautiful little fool." All the bright precious things fade so fast. And they don't come back.

• Nick Carraway : I remember how we had all come to Gatsby's and guessed at this corruption while he stood before us concealing and incorruptible dream...

• Nick Carraway : It's a strange coincidence.

  Jordan Baker : What is?

  Nick Carraway : The fact that Gatsby's house is just across the bay.

  Jordan Baker : It's no coincidence. He bought that house to be near her. He threw all those parties, hoping she'd wander in one night. He constantly asked about Daisy. I was just the first person that knew her.

  Nick Carraway : All that for a girl he hasn't seen in five years.

• Jay Gatsby : [Daisy cries after Gatsby showers her with fancy shirts]  What is it? Daisy, Daisy darling, what is it?

  Daisy Buchanan : It... it makes me sad.

  Jay Gatsby : Why?

  Daisy Buchanan : Because...

  Nick Carraway : [narrating]  Five lost years struggled on Daisy's lips, but all she could manage was...

  Jay Gatsby : Why?

  Daisy Buchanan : [laughs]  Because I've never seen such beautiful shirts before.

• Daisy Buchanan : [dancing with Gatsby]  All my life. I wish it could always be like this.

  Jay Gatsby : It will be.

  Nick Carraway : [narrating]  If only if it'd been enough for Gatsby just to hold Daisy. But he had a grand vision for his life and Daisy's part in it.

• Nick Carraway : Gatsby's real name was James Gatz. His parents were dirt-poor farmers from North Dakota, but he never accepted them as his parents at all. In his own imagination, he was a son of God, destined for future glory.

• Jordan Baker : It all makes sense. It all makes sense!

  Nick Carraway : What makes sense?

  Jordan Baker : Everything! Oh, but here I am tantalizing you when I swore I wouldn't tell.

  Nick Carraway : Just tell me.

  Jordan Baker : Oh, Nick. I'm sorry, I swore. I swore I wouldn't tell.

• Nick Carraway : 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. Anything can happen, now that we have slid over this bridge, I thought. Anything at all. Even Gatsby could happen.

• Meyer Wolfsheim : What a gentleman. From one of the finest families in the Midwest. Ah, sadly, all dead now. When I first made the pleasure of Mr. Gatsby's acquaintance, just after the war, I knew I'd discovered a man of fine breeding. A war hero! Such medals! And an Oxford man. You know Oxford?

  Nick Carraway : Yes, I've heard of it.

  Meyer Wolfsheim : Then you would know that when it comes to married women, a man like this can be trusted. With a friend, with someone like you, he'd never so much as look at your wife.

• Nick Carraway : [to Catherine who was giving him some pills/drugs]  Oh no. My nerves are fine, thanks.