(I have looked at WikiQuote, but could not find it.)
I just watched The Great Gatsby last night for the first time. I was waiting for the Myer Lansky character to say that great half-forgotten quote. In the book he said it a couple of times, once IIRC at the funeral. Something like,
**While they are alive, I blash-blah, when they are dead I forgive them, blah blah. **
Little help?
The nearest I can find from my paperback copy is:
"Let us show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,’ he suggested. “After that my own rule is to let everything alone.”
From here:
http://www.literatureclassics.com/essays/143/
“‘When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in it in any way. I keep out. When I was a young man it was different - if a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the end. You may think that’s sentimental, but I mean it - to the bitter end.’”
“‘Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,’ he suggested. ‘After that, my own rule is to let everything alone.’”
Chapter IX, Pg. 163
Meyer Wolfsheim, the man who claims to have made Gatsby, said the above two quotes. He is one of those illusional people who believed he was right. Before he believed in the him, the her, the theirs, but now he believes in the I, the me, the my. He believes that he is showing Gatsby respect by not turning up to his funeral, but that is also an illusion. In his heart, he knows he has disrespected Gatsby. But he believes in the illusion. He believes he is right. And he won’t do anything to change that.
“‘Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,’ he suggested. ‘After that, my own rule is to let everything alone.’”
Chapter IX, Pg. 163
That is the one, thank you all. I realize how poor my OP was. I simply forgot the quote all to heck.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
is the quote from Gatsby that Fitzgerald has on his own tombstone in Rockville, MD and is quite effective as an epitaph.
*
Apropos of what Jimmmy? Apropos of nothing but when else do you get to say that?*