The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

And in thy joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made one—turn down an empty glass!
‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ (1859) st. 75;
‘And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass...
And in your joyous errand reach the spot.’
in 4th ed. (1879) st. 101
Mrs Browning’s death is rather a relief to me, I must say: no more Aurora Leighs, thank God!
A woman of real genius, I know; but what is the upshot of it all? She and her sex had better mind
the kitchen and their children; and perhaps the poor: except in such things as little novels, they
only devote themselves to what men do much better, leaving that which men do worse or not at
all.
Letter to W. H. Thompson, 15 July 1861.
Taste is the feminine of genius.
Letter to J. R. Lowell, October 1877
6.34 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896-1940
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.
‘All the Sad Young Men’ (1926) ‘Rich Boy’, to which Ernest Hemingway replied, ‘Yes, they have more
money’, in ‘Esquire’ August 1936 ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’
The beautiful and damned.
Title of novel (1922)
No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.
Edmund Wilson (ed.) ‘The Crack-Up’ (1945) ‘Note-Books E’
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
Edmund Wilson (ed.) ‘The Crack-Up’ (1945) ‘Note-Books E’
In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.
‘Esquire’ March 1936 ‘Handle with Care’; ‘dark night of the soul’ is a translation of the Spanish title of a
work by St John of the Cross, known in English as ‘The Ascent of Mount Carmel’ (1578-80)
In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the
champagne and the stars.
‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) ch. 3
Her voice is full of money.
‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) ch. 7
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.
‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) ch. 9
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...So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.
‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) ch. 9