Selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves.
Interpretation
Selfish individuals can still experience deep love despite their tendencies.
This quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that even those who are often perceived as selfish possess the capacity to love profoundly. It highlights the complexity of human emotions, indicating that selfishness does not preclude the ability to form deep and meaningful connections with others.
In practice
In a discussion about the duality of human nature and relationships.
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.
But you were something more than young and sweet And fair, - and the long year remembers you.
There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.
My wish isn't to mean_x000D_ everything to everyone_x000D_ but something to someone.
I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.
Love has a hem to her garment that reaches to the very dust. It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must.
Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart. [On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]
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