Quotes from Jay McInerney

I'm a romantic; you have to be to marry four times.

I don't think I found my voice until I reached New York. I suppose it's possible I would have had some kind of different literary career if I had not discovered New York.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

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

When you catch yourself lying to your therapist, you know it's a waste of money.

Great minds sink alike, right?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed

Things happen, people change,' is what Amanda said. For her that covered it. You wanted an explanation, and ending that would assign blame and dish up justice. You considered violence and you considered reconciliation . But 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.

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

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.

It's like, you can't trust anybody, and if somebody you know doesn't fuck you over it's just because the price of selling you down the river was never high enough.

Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.

I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.

You keep thinking that with practice you will eventually get the knack of enjoying superficial encounters, that you will stop looking for the universal solvent, stop grieving. You will learn to compound happiness out of small increments of mindless pleasure.

There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

Great minds sink alike, right?

Tad's mission in life is to have more fun than anyone else in New York City, and this involves a lot of moving around, since there is always the likelihood that where you aren't is more fun than where you are.

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