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. Jay McInerney More Quotes by Jay McInerney More Quotes From 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 witty love life 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 factory-workers attention world The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families. Jay McInerney family inspiring friendship The only thing worse for smoking than drinking is quitting drinking. Because then it's the only thing you can do. Jay McInerney quitting drinking smoking Bottles of wine aren't like paintings. At some point you have to consume them. The object in life is to die with no bottles of wine in your cellar. To drink your last bottle of wine and go to sleep that night and not wake up. Jay McInerney wine sleep night Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash. Jay McInerney eyelashes fear thinking 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 names life book I think, when I'm writing, I have a more clinical view than I do when I'm reading. I like pretending to be God and basically determining the fate of my characters. But as a reader, I'm a sucker. I'm very sentimental. I get upset when people that I like die. And yet I have killed off characters in my books quite heartlessly, and sometimes found that readers were very upset by it. Jay McInerney reading writing book 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 care soul self I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university. Jay McInerney university facts world Reading a novel is just a much more involving and intimate experience than the act of watching a film. I mean, you literally get inside of a novelist's head, and you invest many hours to do so. Jay McInerney film reading mean The 20th century saw far greater catastrophes than September 11th, as bad as it was, and they didn't render literature or art or music irrelevant. In fact, I think that literature and art help us to understand - sometimes they provide narratives and metaphors for understanding history, for understanding recent catastrophes. Jay McInerney understanding art thinking 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. Jay McInerney crazy mean interesting 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 worry people ideas The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me. Jay McInerney surprise book interesting What I'm nostalgic for is the idea of an edge in New York. There used to be these fringes of the city where civilization sort of ended, and therefore young people could live cheaply, or open nightclubs or art galleries, or even squat. That fringe moved out to New Jersey and Brooklyn. The whole idea of the metropolis is the centralization of like-minded souls, and when the central real estate becomes too expensive, the dreamers, the young poets, and the artists will go elsewhere. Jay McInerney real people art 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 novelists self world Most all of the writers I admired when I was in my teens and twenties died young. Fitzgerald lived the longest. He was 44. Dylan Thomas was 39. And then once you're approaching 40, you suddenly think, "Well, maybe I would like to live longer than Fitzgerald or Thomas." Jay McInerney dylan thinking I think it's dangerous to think you know what you're writing. I usually don't know, and usually I just discover it in the course of writing. I envy those writers who can outline a beginning, a middle, and end. Fitzgerald supposedly did it. John Irving does. Bret Easton Ellis does. But for me, the writing itself is the process of discovery. I can't see all that far ahead. Jay McInerney envy writing thinking Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story. Jay McInerney versions stories
