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Dick Humbird
Kerry Holiday is Amory’s first friend at Princeton; they live in the same house during Amory’s freshman year. Kerry is also Burne’s older brother. Kerry and Amory bond over their initial frustrations with the Princeton social scene, feeling like they are not accepted because they are middle class. They become close and have a rowdy, lively friendship. Kerry is the first of Amory’s classmates to leave school to join the war, where he later dies.
Kerry Holiday Quotes in This Side of Paradise
The This Side of Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Kerry Holiday or refer to Kerry Holiday. 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:
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Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles Quotes
“Oh, it isn’t that I mind the glittering caste system,” admitted Amory. “I like having a bunch of hot cats on top, but gosh, Kerry, I’ve got to be one of them.”
“But just now, Amory, you’re only a sweaty bourgeois.”
Amory lay for a moment without speaking.
“I won’t be—long,” he said finally. “But I hate to get anywhere by working for it. I’ll show the marks, don’t you know.”
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In this quote, Amory is in his first year at Princeton and struggling to feel accepted as part of the social system. When Kerry says that Amory is “only a sweaty bourgeois,” he means that Amory cannot hide the fact that he is middle class and striving to seem upper class, while many of his classmates come from upper-class backgrounds and do not have to work to make themselves seem socially conventional. Amory resents that he has to work to fit in, worrying that it marks him as inferior. But though Amory aspires to seem leisurely and moneyed, as if Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde
Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers Quotes
“A personality is what you thought you were, what this Kerry and Sloane you tell me of evidently are. Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on—I’ve seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides ‘the next thing.’ Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he’s done. He’s a bar on which a thousand things have been hung—glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them.”
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In this quote, Monsignor Darcy introduces the concept of a “personality” versus a “personage,” which shapes Amory’s understanding of himself for the rest of the novel. This concept introduces to Amory the idea that growing up and coming of age is not entirely a loss, but also that in gaining new experiences he is becoming a more mature version of himself. While earlier in the novel, Amory’s desire to conform has made him alter himself, this self-transformation still constitutes being a “personality” by this rubric: Amory’s steadfast belief in the social system has made him “override” the part of himself Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam offic
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Kerry Holiday Character Timeline in This Side of Paradise
The timeline below shows where the character Kerry Holiday appears in This Side of Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles
...his clothes. In his building, a large run-down mansion that houses other students, Amory meets Kerry Holiday, who went to Andover. Amory eats dinner with Kerry and his brother, Burne Holiday,...
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Amory and Kerry wonder why they have not been accepted among Princeton’s elite yet. Amory is afraid that...
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Amory and Kerry play pranks on their housemates, and Amory gives Kerry advice on how to appeal to...
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...Amory up one morning to skip class and drive to the beach with him, Dick, Kerry, and Jesse Ferrenby. Amory joins them despite being worried about cutting class. Amory thinks about...
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...the boardwalk and refuse to pay the bill. They then walk down the boardwalk, where Kerry meets a girl whom the others consider ugly—still, she joins their party. Amory notices that...
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Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers
...visits Monsignor Darcy at Christmas and admits that he wants to leave college, and that Kerry has asked him to join the army with him. Monsignor Darcy discourages him, saying that...
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Interlude: May, 1917 – February, 1919
...of her life, and her investments in railroads are losing money. Amory also reveals that Kerry and Jesse have died in the war, and that Burne has gone missing.
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Book 2, Chapter 4: The Supercilious Sacrifice
...two women, in Atlantic City. Amory is preoccupied by the deaths of their friends, Jesse, Kerry, and Dick, as well as by his pain about Rosalind, yet he agrees to spend...
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