25 The Great Gatsby Quotes About Love (With Chapter Numbers)

Discover the most important The Great Gatsby quotes about love from this easy classic fiction book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Below are famous lines and details about the author and what love represents in this “Great American Novel.”

You can easily read and use these classic book quotes for academic or personal use, such as essays, presentations, social media posts, a script for a wedding ceremony. Let’s get literary!

“I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He is singing away… It’s romantic, isn’t it Tom?” (Chapter 1)

“Her gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home.” (Chapter 3)

“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” (Chapter 3)

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” (Chapter 5)

“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.” (Chapter 5)

“But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.” (Chapter 5)

“He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. 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 over-wound clock.” (Chapter 5)

“He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.” (Chapter 5)

“He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.” (Chapter 6)

“He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.” (Chapter 6)

“He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.'” (Chapter 6)

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” (Chapter 6)

“‘Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now—isn’t that enough?'” (Chapter 7)

“Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.” (Chapter 7)

“Just tell him the truth—that you never loved him—and it’s all wiped out forever.” (Chapter 7)

“As he left the room she got up again and went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down kissing him on the mouth. ‘You know I love you,'” she murmurred.” (Chapter 7)

“And what’s more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.” (Chapter 7)

“I did love him once—but I loved you too.” (Chapter 7)

“‘Your wife doesn’t love you,’ said Gatsby. ‘She’s never loved you. She loves me.'” (Chapter 7)

“And what’s more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.” (Chapter 7)

“I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too… Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” (Chapter 8)

“It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.” (Chapter 8)

“They had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.” (Chapter 8)

“She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand.” (Chapter 8)

“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.” (Chapter 9)