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24141b9
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The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.
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friendship
humor
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Jay McInerney |
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3fc52d3
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Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed
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Jay McInerney |
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3d01297
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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fe945b2
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Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.
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Jay McInerney |
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9d42292
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It's like, you can't trust anybody, and if somebody you know doesn't fuck you over it's just because the price of selling you down the river was never high enough.
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Jay McInerney |
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32f4627
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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8c0bd79
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I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.
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Jay McInerney |
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a977047
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Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.
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Jay McInerney |
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d3ecfb4
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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ced05a2
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Great minds sink alike, right?
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Jay McInerney |
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0aebeba
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There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.
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Jay McInerney |
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7ca3267
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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
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Jay McInerney |
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0c51016
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You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy.
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Jay McInerney |
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ed3c13f
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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7d42fd4
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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8940b39
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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cfba782
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I'd urge you to try German Riesling because it's delicious, but I fear you'll be more impressed if I tell you it's cutting-edge. That, after all, is what we want to know-- what's now and happening. (Do you really think clunky square-toed shoes make your feet look better than those with slimming, tapered toes? You just wear them because that's what fashion dictates, you slut.)
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humor
wine
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Jay McInerney |
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5143ff1
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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.
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literature
writing
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Jay McInerney |
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d68340e
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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?
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money
illusion
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Jay McInerney |
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86360be
|
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.
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Jay McInerney |
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16d6d28
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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..
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late-nights
wasted-time
night-life
drugs
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Jay McInerney |
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a8acc74
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He looks out the window at the falling snow, then turns and takes his wife in his arms, feeling grateful to be here even as he wonders what he is going to do with his life in strictly practical terms. For years he had trained himself to do one thing, and he did it well, but he doesn't know whether he wants to keep doing it for the rest of his life, for that matter, whether anyone will let him. He is still worrying when they go to bed. Feeli..
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life
novel
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Jay McInerney |
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3dc267d
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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 ..
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Jay McInerney |
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e94473d
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Here you are again. All messed up and no place to go.
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Jay McInerney |
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1fc9cbf
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I'm about to take a shower because I smell like an all-nighter, then I think I'll take a bath so I can have a faucet orgasm. After all, I didn't get any last night. A faucet orgasm is pretty much the same principle as a bidet orgasm except upside-down. When we were growing up we had bidets in all the bathrooms and when I was about ten I accidentally discovered one of the things they were good for. After that I used to spend hours on the dam..
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bidet
orgasm
self-indulgence
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Jay McInerney |
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ec74443
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You are the kind of guy who always hopes for a miracle at the last minute.
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Jay McInerney |
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fb6fbf8
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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."
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funny
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Jay McInerney |
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c64fc2c
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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.
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Jay McInerney |
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1efd568
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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..
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losing-a-job
samurai
zen
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Jay McInerney |
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09f992b
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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."
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tattoo
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Jay McInerney |
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fe9da9a
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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."
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melancholy
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Jay McInerney |
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a486cc6
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Such moments are too often lost, the private interludes between the tribal gatherings, the transit between destinations, when the city becomes an intimate landscape, a secret shared by two. This was once their neighborhood and she wants to reclaim it for a little while, to walk past the apartment where they spent so much of their lives, even if it makes her sad thinking of all that transpired there, and all that's lost. It makes her melanch..
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Jay McInerney |
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e550766
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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 experi..
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point-of-view
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Jay McInerney |
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b3f93aa
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From the window, Luke looked out over the water towers of Fifth Avenue to the park, studying the senescence of the daylight, which seemed almost viscous, ready to coagulate--trying to register that perfect moment of transition from day to evening, that instant when the light, in dying, was most nearly itself.
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Jay McInerney |
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cfae3ae
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Love is recreational, it needs not be aspirational
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Jay McInerney |
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5372633
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Your head is pounding with voices of confession and revelation. You followed the rails of white powder across the mirror in pursuit of a point of convergence where everything was cross-referenced according to a master code. For a second, you felt terrific. You were coming to grips. Then the coke ran out; as you hoovered the last line, you saw yourself hideously close-up with a rolled twenty sticking out of your nose. The goal is receding. W..
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Jay McInerney |
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2abc8e4
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The sound of the tumblers in the locks of your apartment door puts you in mind of dungeons. The place is haunted. Just this morning you found a makeup brush beside the toilet. Memories lurk like dustballs at the backs of drawers. The stereo is a special model that plays only music fraught with poignant associations.
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melancholy
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Jay McInerney |
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db316a7
|
Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. The need the Bolivian Marching Powder.
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drugs
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Jay McInerney |
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a5a0360
|
You have a bad memory for details. You can tell her the date of the Spanish Armada, but you couldn't even guess at the balance of your checkbook.
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Jay McInerney |
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46077ce
|
It's the Abstract Expressionist approach to publishing. Throw ink at paper. Hope for pattern to emerge.
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on-writing
|
Jay McInerney |
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0b8d19a
|
Alex hadn't been clubbing in several years. After he and Lydia moved in together, the clubs lost their appeal. Now he felt the return of the old thrill, the anticipation of the hunt--the sense that the night held secrets bound to be unveiled before it was over. Tasha was talking about someone in New York whom Alex was supposed to know. "The last time I saw him, he just kept banging his head against the wall, and I said to him, 'Michael, you..
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Jay McInerney |
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4ecc9cf
|
When the train begins to move they return to their Posts and their private sorrows.
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Jay McInerney |
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2f41abb
|
Go Home. Cut your losses. Stay. Go for it. You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy. All these voices waving their arms and screaming at one another.
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mind
humor
indecision
italy
|
Jay McInerney |
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4b31560
|
And as he feels himself falling asleep he has an insight he believes is important, which he hopes he will remember in the morning, although it is one of those thoughts that seldom survive translation to the language of daylight hours
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Jay McInerney |