A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that social success often requires humility and strategy, regardless of one's appearance.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote reflects the idea that success in social situations is not solely dependent on physical attractiveness but rather on one's ability to navigate social dynamics with care and thoughtfulness. The metaphor of a 'pretty girl playing her cards carefully' implies that even those who may seem to have an advantage should not rely solely on their looks; instead, they must be strategic and wise in their interactions, much like someone deemed less attractive might need to be to gain social acceptance.
In practice
This quote could be used at a social skills workshop to emphasize the importance of strategy in social interactions.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
I think a lot about our globalized world, our global interconnectedness, and it really saddens me when I see people 'othering,' when I see people who are willing to live narrowly.
Nothing is more sweet than harmony in marriage, and nothing more distressing than dissension.
She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.
Let us be honest with each other. The threat to marriage is not the gays. It is a lack of loving commitment - whether it is found in the form of neglect, indifference, cruelty or adultery, to name just a few manifestations of the loveless desert in which too many marriages come to grief.
When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife: Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance.
It occurred to Dr. Lecter in the moment that with all his knowledge and intrusion, he could never entirely predict her, or own her at all. He could feed the caterpillar, he could whisper through the chrysalis; what hatched out followed its own nature and was beyond him. He wondered if she had the .45 on her leg beneath the gown. Clarice Starling smiled at him then, the cabochons caught the firelight and the monster was lost in self-congratulation at his own exquisite taste and cunning.
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