The best Quotes from The Beautiful and Damned

Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.

The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.

He looked at her the way all women wanted to be looked at by a man.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

All right... I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.

I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.

Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.

Gatsby turned out all right in the end. It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

It's like you're homesick for a place that doesn't even exist.

I know I'm not worthy of you. But I just can't help loving you. It's like wanting to touch a star - you know you'll never reach it, but you just gotta keep trying.

Sometimes we need to be apart to understand just how much we truly love each other.

Too often, the thing you want most is the one thing you can't have. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. And as tough as wanting something can be, the people who suffer the most are those who don't know what they want.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.

Weeping willow with your tears running down, why do you always weep and frown? Is it because he left you one day? is it because he could not stay? On your branches he would swing, do you long for the happiness that day would bring? He found shelter in your shade. You thought his laughter would never fade. Weeping willow, stop your tears. There is something to calm you fears. You think death has ripped you forever apart. But I know he'll always be in your heart.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Walk until the darkness is a memory, and you become the sun on the next traveler's horizon.

Humans had always been better at killing than any other living thing.

"And what if there's nothing in there?"
"You die and there's nothing beyond that. Nothing. Nothing remains. Someone might remember you for a little while after but not for long."

There's only one thing that can save a man from madness and that's uncertainty.

The number of places in paradise is limited; only in hell is entry open to all.