Did F. Scott Fitzgerald every say "everyone's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness"?

November 28, 2011 2:45 PM

F. Scott FitzgeraldFilter: "Everyone's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." I've seen this quote attributed to F. Scott. Did he actually say it?

(Or write it?) And if so, where?

posted by toomuchkatherine to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

It's in Tales of the Jazz Age
posted by Paragon at 2:52 PM on November 28, 2011

Yes. Ctrl-f The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.
posted by gingerest at 2:52 PM on November 28, 2011

Just because this always bugs the hell out of me: Fitzgerald did not "say" it, his character John did. FSF wrote the line, but he wrote it for a character who is not him. Forgive me for belaboring the obvious, but I so often see some statement attributed to an author who put it in the mouth of a character that I can't resist mentioning it here.
posted by languagehat at 5:17 PM on November 28, 2011 [6 favorites]

It was more elegantly put by La Rochefoucauld in 1665 -- Youth is one long intoxication, it is reason in a fever.

At least that how it reads in the Leonard Tancock translation for the Penguin Classics edition of his Maxims.
posted by y2karl at 12:11 AM on December 16, 2011