Quote 40
No telephone message arrived, but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clock – until long after there was any one to give it to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. (8.111)
In the end, Gatsby does pay a high price for living too long with a single dream: death. Now, we're not saying that you'll end up dead if you don't give up your dream of have made Homecoming Court or a perfect score on the SAT—but we are saying that, at some point, you're probably going to have to move on.
Quote 41
It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply – I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man's coat. (3.159)
This quote gives us an interesting look into Nick's psyche. He's noticed a character flaw in Jordan (she's dishonest), but ultimately he brushes it off because he's into her—and here we thought Daisy and Gatsby were the only ones wearing rose-colored glasses.
Quote 42
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. (9.149-153)
As a wise man once said, the term "Future Perfect" will be abandoned "[when it is] discovered not to be." In other words? The future never lives up to our expectations—and, in fact, having expectations of it just binds us to the past.