I'm too bright for most men, and yet I have to descend to their level and let them patronize my intellect in order to get their attention. Every year that I don't marry I've got less chance for a first-class man.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920). copy citation

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Author F. Scott Fitzgerald
Source This Side of Paradise
Topic attention intellect
Date 1920
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/805/805-h/805-h.htm

Context

“you're stupider than I am, not much, but some, and you can lope about and get bored and then lope somewhere else, and you can play around with girls without being involved in meshes of sentiment, and you can do anything and be justified—and here am I with the brains to do everything, yet tied to the sinking ship of future matrimony. If I were born a hundred years from now, well and good, but now what's in store for me—I have to marry, that goes without saying. Who? I'm too bright for most men, and yet I have to descend to their level and let them patronize my intellect in order to get their attention. Every year that I don't marry I've got less chance for a first-class man. At the best I can have my choice from one or two cities and, of course, I have to marry into a dinner-coat. “Listen,” she leaned close again, “I like clever men and good-looking men, and, of course, no one cares more for personality than I do.” source