The nameless loser in Jay McInerney's 'Bright Lights, Big City' is going to the dogs like a gentleman. He is too smart to blame anyone for the impasse he has come to, hip enough to know he does not know enough, too sophisticated to masquerade as an anti-hero.

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.

Suffering is supposed to be the raw stuff of art.

Taste is a matter of taste.

Everything becomes symbol and irony when you have been betrayed.

Your presence here is is only a matter of conducting an experiment in limits, reminding yourself of what you aren’t.