Quotes from Bret Easton Ellis

Adónde vamos' —pregunté. —No lo sé—dijo—. Simplemente damos una vuelta en coche. —pero esta carretera no lleva a ninguna parte—le dije. —No importa. —¿Y qué es lo que importa? —le pregunté al cabo de un rato. —Solo que estamos en ella, tío —dijo.

This particular wish—the desire to remain a child forever—strikes me as a defining aspect in American life right now: a collective sentiment that imposes itself over the neutrality of facts and context. This narrative is about how we wish the world worked out in contrast to the disappointment that everyday life offers us, and it helps us to shield ourselves from not only the chaos of reality but also from our own personal failures.

What is this bullshit—it is what it is?

And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel my flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense that our lifestyles are probably comparable - I simply am not there.

conversation continued. I was the one who felt his frustration and the betrayal. He actually pushed away from

someone I liked was offended by something I loved. I can't listen to "Manic Monday

The horror of 9/11 represented the end of Empire, a shock that moved us out of the twentieth century's binary Cold War thinking (The center will not hold) and into a world where there was, and is, no center; our enemies are insurgent and decentralized, our media also decentralized and insurgent. The culture seemed like it no longer belonged to the titans but instead to whoever could seize its attention with whatever immediacy and force.

This in turn has led to the awful idea—and booming business—of reputation management, where firms are hired to help shape a more likable, relatable You. Devoted to gaming the system, this new practice is a form of deception, an attempt to erase (strangely) both subjectivity and objectivity, to evaluate through mass intuition, for a very high price.

Bueno lo del matrimonio no está mal...Pero lo de hacer de padre es más duro. Papi ¿puedo beberme un zumo? ¿Qué tal un poco de agua, cielo? ¿Papi? ¿Sí? ¿Puedo beberme un zumo? ¿Qué tal un poco de agua, cielo? ¿Papi, puedo beberme un zumo? Vale cielo, ¿Quieres un zumo? No, da igual, beberé un poco de agua. Es como si estuviéramos todo el rato ensayando una puta obra de Beckett

keep your mouth shut and your skirt long, be modest and don't have any fucking opinions except those of the majority groupthink in that moment. The reputation economy is another instance of the blanding of our society, even though the enforcement of groupthink in social media has only increased anxiety and paranoia, because those who eagerly approve of the reputation economy are, of course, also the most scared.

Do you know what a fucking loser you are?

She bemoaned the fact that we didn't seem to be at a point anymore when being extremely good at something—and getting rewarded for that talent with attention, respect and money—was even regarded as possible.

But if you look at everything only through the lens of your party or affiliation, and are capable of being in the same room only with people who think and vote like you, doesn't that make you somewhat uncurious and oversimplifying, passive-aggressive, locked into assuming you are riding the high moral tide, without ever wondering if you might not, in the eyes of others, be on the very bottom?

I want to fuck you again, I tell her, but I don't want to wear a condom because I don't feel anything, and she says calmly, taking her mouth off my limp shrunken dick, glaring at me, If you don't use one you're not going to feel anything anyway.

Robby intentaba no gemir pero incluso borracho detecté el miedo en su voz. Carraspeé, con los ojos todavía cerrados. - ¿Qué quieres decir? - Creo que algo está subiendo las escaleras. Algo está arañando la puerta de mi cuarto. Según Robby por lo visto contesté: - Estoy seguro de que no es nada. Vuelve a la cama. - No puedo, papá - replicó Robby -. Tengo miedo. (Bueno, y yo. Bienvenido al club. Vete acostumbrando, porque no se pasa.)

essence, it's fascist. Here's the dead end of social media: after you've created your own bubble that reflects only what you relate to or what you identify with, after you've blocked and unfollowed people whose opinions and worldview you judge and disagree with, after you've created your own little utopia based on your cherished values, then a kind of demented narcissism begins to warp this pretty picture.

Not being able or willing to put yourself in someone else's shoes—to view life differently from how you yourself experience it—is the first step toward being not empathic, and this is why so many progressive movements become as rigid and as authoritarian as the institutions they're resisting.

What Kanye was championing in his Trump tweets was an idea of peace and unity, imagining a place where different sides could work together despite vicious ideological differences—that's it. He wasn't particularly interested in actual politics or literal policy, but it also seemed by the end of the summer of 2018 that no one else was, either.

victim/hero (they're the same thing now for millennials)

American Psycho was about what it meant to be a person in a society you disagreed with and what happened when you attempted to accept and live with its values even if you knew they were wrong. Delusion and anxiety were the focal points.

No, not handsome, just vaguely Long Islandish.

No negativity allowed: we're only asking to be admired in the display culture we were raised in.

Patrick's obsession with his likes and dislikes and with detailing everything he owns, wears, eats, and watches has reached a new apotheosis. In many respects American Psycho is one man's ultimate series of selfies.

But maybe I was more like Lena Dunham on her TV series Girls, which examined her own generation with a caustic, withering eye yet also remained supportive. And this is crucial: you can be both. In order to be an artist, to raise yourself above the overreacting fear-based din in which criticism is considered elitist, you need to be both.