The Wire

"Fitzgerald said that there were no second acts in American lives. The past is always with us. And where we come from, what we go through...how we go through it, all that shit matters. Like the famous last line of 'The Great Gatsby,' about boats and tides and all, it's like you can change up, right? You can say you're somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story..but what came first is who you really are...and what happened before is what really happened. And it don't matter that some fool say he different...'cause the only thing that can make you different...is what you really do or what you really go through. Like, you know, like all them books in his library. Now, he fronting with all them books...but if we pull one down off the shelf, ain't none of the pages ever been opened. He got all them books, and he ain't read near one of them. Gatsby, he was who he was, and he did what he did...and 'cause he wasn't ready to get real with the story...that shit caught up to him."