In the library at Princeton sit two 8 1/2 by 11 spring binder notebooks which F. Scott Fitzgerald filled with scraps he wanted to save from short stories he knew he wouldn’t republish, along with lines, paragraphs, “Nonsense and Stray Phrases,” “Conversation and Things Overheard,” “Feelings & Emotion (without girls),” “Descriptions of Girls,” “Moments (What people do)” and other material. Editor Matthew Bruccoli numbered them and supervised the publication.

602 Cordell Hull – Donald Duck eyes?

1021 T. S. P A Romance and a Reading List

Sun also Rises. A Romance and a Guide Book

1029 I can never remember the times when I wrote anything – This Side of Paradise time or Beautiful and Damned and Gatsby time for instance. Lived in story

1043 When Whitman said “Oh Pioneers” he said all.

1312 Idea that in the higher levels of human achievement writing Thalberg etc. difference is so slight etc.

1313 Awful disillusion of arriving at center of supposed authority and finding need of flattery so as to be reinforced in that authority

1362 I left my capacity for hoping on the little roads that led to Zelda’s sanitarium

1372 About finding I am not a rational type, finding it in Hollywood, I mean, in script writing. How every director must be, for instance.

1846 The people of Hollywood are not very nice outwardly – there is too much unwelcome familiarity, too much casual snootiness. (the agent who picked up paper in the office).

1853 Malibu: A bunch of dressing cabins for people who can’t swim (look up and see if it’s mine or DeMille’s)

2058 The purpose of a fiction story is to create passionate curiosity and then to gratify it unexpectedly, orgasmically. Isn’t that what we expect from all contacts?

2041 Actresses have to be show offs and not look like show off.

2043 There is a time in the life of all great conquerors when they would gladly settle in for a safe colonelcy – but they can’t; for them it’s Victory or elimination.

Cordell Hull

Previous coverage of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notebooks, his lifestyle and diet, and Love of the Last Tycoon.