Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do; they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval.
Interpretation
People often overestimate the intensity of others' feelings towards them, believing emotions fluctuate greatly.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote suggests that individuals tend to misconstrue how much others care about them. Many people believe that others are preoccupied with their opinions, often swinging between extremes of approval and disapproval, when in reality, others are often more neutral or indifferent. This reflects a common human tendency to be self-centered in our perceptions, imagining that others devote significant emotional energy to our existence and choices.
In practice
This quote could be used in a self-help seminar to remind participants about the nature of self-perception.
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.
Although many, we might even say most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of a fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.
Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
I would go so far as to say I would not have the life that I have right now if it wasn't for Gabe Liedman. He is the first person I met in my adulthood that I felt was truly delighted by me and understood me and also was curious about me.
I got into Facebook late, and I think if you get into Facebook late, you tend to use it the right way, as opposed to the people who got into it sooner and friended everybody and now have a thousand friends. I keep it at about 80 or so, and they're all people I know. Just because I do a movie doesn't mean I friend everybody in it.
Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee.
If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles - you're lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers; you're brother and sister. That's what intimacy is, if you're with your soulmate.
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