The Great Gatsby

From the Great Gatsby: Nick had been talking to a man about how they'd each been in the same 3rd division in the war, without knowing the man was Gatsby, whose party he was attending. Then Nick says, "This is an unusual party for me. I haven't even seen the host...." "I'm Gatsby," he said suddenly. "What!" I exclaimed. "Oh, I beg your pardon." "I thought you knew, old sport. I'm afraid I'm not a very good host." [and here is the paragraph that struck me:] “He smiled understandingly -- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced -- or seemed to face -- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, your hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished ----“ ………………………….. “Gatsby's wonder.... His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . .And one fine morning---- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."