Jay McInerney - Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

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Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.

Jay McInerney
You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy.

Jay McInerney
... and 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
You are on the anti-cline of the first rush. You are also experiencing the inevitable disappointment of clubs. You enter with an anticipation that on the basis of past experience is completely unjustified. You always seem to forget that you don't really like to dance. Since you are already here, though, you owe it to yourself to make a sustained assault on the citadel of the senses.

Jay McInerney
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
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
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
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