The Crack-Up

          I had weaned myself from all those things i used to love - that every act of life from morning toothbrush to the friend at dinner had become an effort. I saw that for a long time i had not liked people and things but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking.

                                         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         All in the same month i became bitter about such things as the sound of the radio, the advertisements in magazines, the screech of tracks, the dead silence of the country - contemptuous at human softness, immediately (if secretively) quarrelsome towards hardness - hating the night when i couldn't sleep and hating the day because it went toward night.

The Crack-Up
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1936

originally published
in Esquire magazine