‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’
‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby. Chapter 6, Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby. Gatsby dreams that he can repeat the past, and make Daisy love him completely once again. But the reality is Daisy is married to Tom and to his money.