The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Central Characters Use the tables to collect key quotations related to the different aspects of the characters. Jay Gatsby “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.” (Page 4) “It was testimony to the romantic speculation [Gatsby] inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.” (Page 48) “I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.” (Page 53) “He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American—that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. is quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.” (Page 69) Fabricated story: “I am the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.” (Page 70) Truth: “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.” (Page 105) (Before seeing Daisy at Nick’s house) “An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie hurried in. He was pale and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.” (Page 90) (After the first conversation with Daisy) “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 lled the little room.” (Page 95)