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Monsignor Darcy
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom) is a close friend of Amory’s at Princeton. Later, Tom, Amory, and Alec Connage live together in New York. Amory is first introduced to Tom by his poetry, published in the Nassau Literary Magazine, which Amory and Kerry consider pretentious. When Amory meets Tom in the dining hall, however, they quickly establish a friendship based on their shared interest in literature. Tom is intellectual and bookish and at first disinterested in becoming part of the social scene, but Amory succeeds in Tom “conventional,” encouraging him to change his appearance and discuss popular subjects. However, Tom resents his transformation and finds the Princeton social scene superficial and hierarchical, and he believes that without Amory’s intervention, he could have become a great poet. After the war, Amory and Tom live together in New York, where Tom is a newspaper writer for The New Democracy. Tom and Amory share a sense of aimlessness and dissatisfaction. Tom moves out of the apartment when his mother becomes sick, which is the last time Amory sees him.
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom) Quotes in This Side of Paradise
The This Side of Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom) or refer to Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles
Quotes
“No,” declared Tom emphatically, a new Tom, clothed by Brooks, shod by Franks, “I’ve won this game, but I feel as if I never want to play another. You’re all right—you’re a rubber ball, and somehow it suits you, but I’m sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this corner of the world. I want to go where people aren’t barred because of the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats.”
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Book 1, Chapter 4: Narcissus Off Duty
Quotes
“You know,” whispered Tom, “what we feel now is the sense of all the gorgeous youth that has rioted through here in two hundred years. (…) And what we leave here is more than one class; it’s the whole heritage of youth. We’re just one generation—we’re breaking all the links that seemed to bind us here to top-booted and high-stocked generations.”
Book 2, Chapter 2: Experiments in Convalescence
Quotes
“[The war] certainly ruined the old backgrounds, sort of killed individualism out of our generation. (…) I’m not sure it didn’t kill it out of the whole world. Oh, Lord, what a pleasure it used to be to dream I might be a really great dictator or writer or religious or political leader—and now even Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo de Medici couldn’t be a real old-fashioned bolt in the world. Life is too huge and complex. The world is so overgrown that it can’t lift its own fingers, and I was planning to be such an important finger—”
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Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom) Quotes in This Side of Paradise
The This Side of Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom) or refer to Thomas Parke D’Invilliers (Tom). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles
Quotes
“No,” declared Tom emphatically, a new Tom, clothed by Brooks, shod by Franks, “I’ve won this game, but I feel as if I never want to play another. You’re all right—you’re a rubber ball, and somehow it suits you, but I’m sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this corner of the world. I want to go where people aren’t barred because of the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Chapter 4: Narcissus Off Duty
Quotes
“You know,” whispered Tom, “what we feel now is the sense of all the gorgeous youth that has rioted through here in two hundred years. (…) And what we leave here is more than one class; it’s the whole heritage of youth. We’re just one generation—we’re breaking all the links that seemed to bind us here to top-booted and high-stocked generations.”
Book 2, Chapter 2: Experiments in Convalescence
Quotes
“[The war] certainly ruined the old backgrounds, sort of killed individualism out of our generation. (…) I’m not sure it didn’t kill it out of the whole world. Oh, Lord, what a pleasure it used to be to dream I might be a really great dictator or writer or religious or political leader—and now even Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo de Medici couldn’t be a real old-fashioned bolt in the world. Life is too huge and complex. The world is so overgrown that it can’t lift its own fingers, and I was planning to be such an important finger—”
