The Great Gatsby Quotes

Context

This line is spoken by Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

If Jay Gatsby is "the Great Gatsby," then Nick Carraway would apparently be "the Honest Carraway." According to him, anyway. It's a shame he couldn't come up with something quite as catchy. Even "the Catchy Carraway" would have been more memorable.

Nick is our narrator, and in the third chapter of Fitzgerald's classic novel, he puts his modesty aside for a moment to inform all us readers that he's basically Mother Teresa when it comes to telling it like it is. It's not like we ever said anything to indicate we doubted him, but he's seemingly struggling with some insecurity issues, because he is trying really hard to plant himself firmly in our good graces.

Of course, Carraway isn't just letting us know he's on the up-and-up. He's also uttering these words as a bit of a slam on his friend Jordan Baker, whom he claims is dishonest. Although, if he's really concerned about honesty, maybe he should confront Jordan about it, rather than passive-aggressively writing about it in a book and telling half the English-speaking world what he thinks.

We can't really blame him for getting carried away, though. That is practically his name.

Where you've heard it

While it's a great quote, and might be easily identified in a roomful of lit professors, it's not really an oft-quoted or referenced line, so you aren't likely to come across a storefront that's made use of it to craft a witty, punny company name.

If you ever do hear someone say it, you can be almost sure they're hiding something. It would be like walking into a room where someone is hovering over half a chocolate cake, and they turn to you with eyes wide and say, "I didn't even touch it." Sure you didn't.

Every once in a while, however, you might still come across the quote on the ol' internet. Like here, where Wonka himself is getting in on the action.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Any time someone gives humility a huge kick in the rear and proceeds to tell the world how awesome they are…that's pretentious.