Quotes from Jay McInerney

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

There aren't many shy writers left.

Yeah, 'Gossip Girl' is a good show. It's a real New York show, like 'Sex and the City.'

I've been interested in writing and storytelling since I learned to read, but it wasn't until I read Dylan Thomas, when I was 14, that I became interested in language itself, and saw it as more than a transparent medium for a story.

I think a lot of the people who write about me think that if they had to write fewer interviews then they would transcribe their life-story and it would be a big success. Or should be.

I remain a fan of my friend Bret Easton Ellis's 'American Psycho.' I think as a book about New York in the '80s it was pretty excellent.

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

Mine is not an autonomous imagination.

I'm afraid that - not necessarily deliberately, but consistently - I've made a kind of laboratory out of my life, where I mix the stuff in the test tubes to create explosions - possibly resulting in interesting by-products. I mean, not deliberately - I'd be crazy to deliberately do that - or maybe not.

Sometimes I think everything I touch turns into a Page Six item.

Eat, drink and remarry is my motto.

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

I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university.

I don't think I've left a trail of weeping women in my wake. I mean, the number of serious relationships I've had has not been into double digits.

A modest critique of an age in which an actor is the President, in which fashion models are asked for their opinions, in which getting into a nightclub is seen as a significant human achievement.

You are the stuff of which consumer profiles – American Dream: Educated Middle-Class Model – are made. When you're staying at the Plaza with your beautiful wife, doesn't it make sense to order the best Scotch that money can buy before you go to the theater in your private limousine?

Did you know that ninety percent of your average household dust is composed of human epidermal matter? That's skin, to you. Perhaps this explains your sense of Amanda's omnipresence. She has left her skin behind.

Suffering is supposed to be the raw stuff of art.

You are the kind of guy who always hopes for a miracle at the last minute.

Memories lurk like dustballs in the backs of drawers. The stereo is a special model that plays only music fraught with poignant associations.

The girl with the shaved head has a scar tattooed on her scalp. It looks like a long, sutured gash. You tell her it is very realistic. She takes this as a compliment and thanks you. You meant as opposed to romantic. "I could use one of those right over my heart," you say.

Taste is a matter of taste.

The intercom buzzes while you're changing your shirt. You push the Talk button: Who is it? Narcotics squad. We're soliciting donations for children all over the world who have no drugs.

You described the feeling you'd always had of being misplaced, of always standing to one side of yourself, of watching yourself in the world even as you were being in the world, and wondering if this was how everyone felt. That you always believed that other people had a clearer idea of what they were doing, and didn't worry quite so much about why.