Literary Birthday – 24 September – F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on 24 September 1896 and died on 21 December 1940.

F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes

1. That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.
2. You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.
3. Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.
4. Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.
5. Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.
6. All good writing is like swimming underwater and holding your breath.
7. Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.
8. Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meagre.
9. Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves—that’s the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives—experiences so great and moving that it doesn’t seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.
10. You can stroke people with words.
11. The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
12. Action is character.
13. Character is plot, plot is character.

Read: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 7 Tips For Writing Fiction

F. Scott Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his novels and short stories about the Jazz Age, the 1920s period of prosperity, rapid social change, and changing attitudes towards wealth and pleasure. Fitzgerald published four novels, four collections of stories, and 164 short stories. His first novel, This Side of Paradise, appeared in 1920, followed by The Beautiful and Damned in 1922. His most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925. He later wrote Tender Is the Night in 1934. His work often explored the promise and failure of the American Dream. Other recurring themes included social class, wealth, materialism, ambition, and romantic idealism. Fitzgerald was also associated with the ‘Lost Generation’ of American writers who came of age during and after the First World War. During the 1920s, Fitzgerald and his wife, writer Zelda Fitzgerald, lived in Europe for periods and became part of the expatriate literary community in France. There, he formed a close friendship with Ernest Hemingway and knew Gertrude Stein, among other writers. His relationship with Hemingway later became complicated, and Hemingway was openly critical of Zelda.

Image: Publicity photo, Scribner’s, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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by Amanda Patterson
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