Tom Buchanan is one of the main characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby.
Tom is a physically strong intimidating man with a rigid mindset.
This toughness is reflected in his behavior including his troubled marriage with Daisy where he stubbornly insists on their love despite mutual infidelity.
He peaked early as a famous football star and struggles with the anticlimax of his later life often feeling melancholic.
Tom harbors a victim mentality feeling threatened by societal changes and reacting jealously to Daisy’s past. This leads him to often resort to threats and aggression to maintain control.
Here are some of the most famous quotes by Tom Buchanan.
Best Tom Buchanan Quotes
He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive. ~ Tom Buchanan.
I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry. ~ Tom Buchanan.
I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy, and I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. ~ Tom Buchanan.
I’d like to give you what you and your boys gave me. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Dear, from now on you must promise me to be as careful in your choice of lovers as they are in choosing you when they settle on yet another mark on whom they’ll hustle. ~ Tom Buchanan.
She’s not leaving me! […] Certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger. ~ Tom Buchanan.
And what’s more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time. ~ Tom Buchanan.
It was hard enough last year for Bartleby to pick up after you when your menage-a-trois with the Negro Twins turned ugly after they killed each other over you. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Famous Tom Buchanan Quotes
“You think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?” — Oh, poor Tom! I think we all do by now. ~ Tom Buchanan.
She is not leaving me, certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Did you give Nick a little heart-to-heart talk on the veranda? […] Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it. ~ Tom Buchanan.
You two start on home, Daisy, in Mr. Gatsby’s car. […] Go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over. ~ Tom Buchanan.
You’re crazy! I can’t speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn’t know Daisy then — and I’ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that’s a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Life is something you dominate, Nick! If you’re any good. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Oh, no. No. We’re different. I am. They are. She is. We’re all different from you. You see, we were born different. It’s in our blood. And nothing that you do or say or steal… or dream up can ever change that. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Daisy, can’t you see who this guy is, with his house and his parties and his fancy clothes? He is just a front for Wolfsheim, a gangster, to get his claws into respectable folk like Walter Chase. ~ Tom Buchanan.
What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Top Tom Buchanan Quotes
That’s what happened. The police arrived just as he was leaving the scene of the crime. He tried to escape but wound up getting lead poisoning for his troubles. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda? ~ Tom Buchanan.
He broke off defiantly. ‘What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car.’ There was nothing I could say, except the one unutterable fact that it wasn’t true. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?… Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved…This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or those other races will have control of things…The idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization — oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see? ~ Tom Buchanan.
I found out what your ‘drug-stores’ were. He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong. ~ Tom Buchanan.
I wouldn’t ask too much of her, I ventured. You can’t repeat the past. ~ Tom Buchanan.
Self-control! I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out […] Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. ~ Tom Buchanan.
So these were the 25 top Tom Buchanan quotes and sayings from The Great Gatsby.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Jane Goodall quotes and Jim Henson quotes.
