Bright Lights, Big City Quotes

“Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“She said that certain facts are accessible only from one point of view – the point of view of the creature who experiences them. You think she meant that the only shoes we can ever wear are our own. Meg can’t imagine what it’s like for you to be you, she can only imagine herself being you”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“The problem is, for some reason you think you are going to meet the kind of girl who is not the kind of girl who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Taste ... is a matter of taste (Tad Allagash)”
― Jay Mcinerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“You feel that if only you could make yourself sit down at a typewriter you could give shape to what seems merely a chain reaction of pointless disasters.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“The candor was infectious. It spread back to the beginning of your life. You tried to tell her, as well as you could, what it was like being you. 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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but your rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Eventually you ascend the stairs to the street. You think of Plato's pilgrims climbing out of the cave, from the shadow world of appearances toward things as they really are, and you wonder if it is possible to change in this life. Being with a philosopher makes you think.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Here you are again. All messed up and no place to go.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“You never stopped thinking of yourself as a writer biding his time in the Department of Factual Verification. But between the job and the life there wasn't much time left over for emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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?”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Last night Vicky was talking about the ineffability of inner experience. She told you to imagine what it was like to be a bat. Even if you knew what sonar was and how it worked, you could never know what it feels like to have it, or what it feels like to be a small, furry creature hanging upside down from the roof of a cave. She said that certain facts are accessible only from one point of view - the point of view of the creature who experiences them. You think she meant that the only shoes we can ever wear are our own. Meg can't imagine what it's like for you to be you, she can only imagine herself being you.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“This is shaping up even worse than you anticipated. Still, you feel a measure of detachment, as if you had suffered everything already and this were just a flashback. You wish that you had paid more attention when a woman you met at Heartbreak told you about Zen meditation. Think of all of this as an illusion. She can't hurt you. Nothing can hurt the samurai wh enters combat fully resolved to die. You have already accepted the inevitability of termination, as they say. Still, you'd rather not have to sit through this.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“You are the kind of guy who always hopes for a miracle at the last minute.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“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.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“You will have to go slowly. You will have to learn everything all over again.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“Growing up meant admitting you couldn’t have everything.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

“There she is, as eligible a candidate as you’re likely to find this late in the game. The sexual equivalent of fast food.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City