Words matter. These are the best Jay McInerney Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
You know, I’m always surprised when I read profiles, and they make me sound so jaded. I am so not jaded.
I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they’re going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.
When you catch yourself lying to your therapist, you know it’s a waste of money.
Add anchovies to almost anything, in moderation, and it will taste better.
Eat, drink and remarry is my motto.
I’m a romantic; you have to be to marry four times.
There is a type of writer that can happily bury themselves in the country and dig very deep, but I’m not like that.
Sometimes I think everything I touch turns into a Page Six item.
The definition of gumbo is almost as slippery as that of Creole. Just as gumbo can contain pretty much any kind of meat or seafood, Creole is a vague and inclusive term for native New Orleanians, who may be black or white, depending on whom you’re asking.
A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.
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.
It’s the cynics who never get married.
Yeah, ‘Gossip Girl’ is a good show. It’s a real New York show, like ‘Sex and the City.’
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.
Publishers send me a lot of first novels because my first novel was the defining novel of my career, and I guess a lot of people want my benediction or something.
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.
I love to imagine inside the head of a woman.
I don’t want to have my life fall apart for my work.
You know, Greenwich Village was the traditional bohemia of New York. I wish I could say that was entirely true now. It’s, uh… changed. It’s now got, God help us, investment bankers and journalists, but it’s still a very beautiful part of New York.
I always hope people will like me, and I’m always afraid they will think I’m a fraud. I try harder than perhaps I should to make people like me, then it backfires. They think I’m a buffoon.
There aren’t many shy writers left.
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.
We’ve been hearing about the death of the novel ever since the day after Don Quixote was published.
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.
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.
I like the fact that I’m living in the world rather than in a university.
Love is the eternal quest: almost everyone wants to love and be loved.
Anybody who becomes a movie star becomes successful at projecting a certain image to the public.
I certainly think that the publishing houses have to learn more about this informal network of literary blogging and get over the idea that sending an author on a book tour – to Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles – is a successful model anymore.
