Jay McInerney quotes

Jay McInerney is an American novelist and literary critic, best known for his debut novel "Bright Lights, Big City." His works often explore themes of urban life, excess, and social observation. He has also contributed to various magazines and has established a reputation as a prominent voice in contemporary American literature. Here are 41 of his quotes:

Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I certainly did.

Jay McInerney

A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

Jay McInerney

Eat, drink and remarry is my motto.

Jay McInerney

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.

Jay McInerney

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

Jay McInerney

There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention.

Jay McInerney

You have friends who actually care about you and speak the language of the inner self. You have avoided them of late. Your soul is as disheveled as your apartment, and until you can clean it up a little you don't want to invite anyone inside.

Jay McInerney

Add anchovies to almost anything, in moderation, and it will taste better.

Jay McInerney

You know, Im always surprised when I read profiles, and they make me sound so jaded. I am so not jaded.

Jay McInerney

Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.

Jay McInerney

The definition of gumbo is almost as slippery as that of Creole. Just as gumbo can contain pretty much any kind of meat or seafood, Creole is a vague and inclusive term for native New Orleanians, who may be black or white, depending on whom you're asking.

Jay McInerney

Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.

Jay McInerney

Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed.

Jay McInerney

Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.

Jay McInerney

You are on the anti-cline of the first rush. You are also experiencing the inevitable disappointment of clubs. You enter with an anticipation that on the basis of past experience is completely unjustified. You always seem to forget that you don't really like to dance. Since you are already here, though, you owe it to yourself to make a sustained assault on the citadel of the senses.

Jay McInerney

... and what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions until all you can remember is a name.

Jay McInerney

You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy.

Jay McInerney

If being a spokesman for a generation is a fleeting occupation, being a symbol of an era is downright dangerous for anyone who has the bad luck to outlive it.

Jay McInerney

Mine is not an autonomous imagination.

Jay McInerney

My former wife is a very eccentric woman, which is why I still love her.

Jay McInerney

Love is the eternal quest: almost everyone wants to love and be loved.

Jay McInerney

I don't want to have my life fall apart for my work.

Jay McInerney