She was a mischief, and that was a satisfaction; no longer was she a huntress of corralled game
Interpretation
The quote reflects on a woman's playful nature and the joy it brings, suggesting a departure from traditional roles.
F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the essence of a woman's spirited and mischievous character in this quote. It suggests that her playful disposition brings satisfaction and freedom, contrasting her past identity as a 'huntress,' someone who might have hunted for more predictable, constrained experiences. Instead, she embraces mischief, indicating both choice and liberation, reveling in her own nature rather than conforming to societal expectations.
In practice
During a wedding toast, one might use this quote to emphasize the joy and freedom found in love.
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.
To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls.
We must love men, ere to us they will seem worthy of our love.
I have a one-track mind. That's all that I'm interested in - love. And the lack of it. When it stops.
But if there's love, dear... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever.
When lovers of life get ready to dance, the earth shakes and the sky trembles.
Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.
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