# Bright Lights, Big City (film)

Bright Lights, Big City is a 1988 American drama film about a disillusioned young writer living in New York City who turns to drugs and drinking to block out the memories of his dead mother and estranged wife.
    Directed by James Bridges. Written by Jay McInerney, based on his novel of the same name.

## Jamie Conway

* There's a certain shabby nobility in failing all by myself.
* [voiceover] You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning and, though the details are fuzzy. You cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar.
* I hear rabies shots are really painful. They put needles in your dick or something.
* This man calls. He said he was her lawyer. Easiest thing all the way around, he said was for me to sue her for sexual abandonment. A legal term, he said.
* You have to go slowly. You'll have to learn everything all over again.

## Tad Allagash

* I, believe it or not, took this bimbo back to her place on Fifth Avenue. Did some of her off-the-boat-quality drugs. We scooped it out of these tall Ming vases - did it off each other's naked bodies. Fucking beautiful, man.
* She's an Allagash. She has Allagash genes. She's a very attractive lady. She'll also inherit a little of the Allagash money.

## Alex Hardy

* [rambling on aimlessly to himself] ...Siamese fighting fish in the water cooler... the old crew in the golden days of this magazine would have thought of it.
* Pygmies. I'm surrounded by pygmies.

## Dialogue

    Ferret Man: Want to buy a ferret?
    Jamie: No, thanks.
    Ferret Man: Loose joints. Genuine Hawaiian sens. His name is Fred...
    Tad Allagash: Speaking of drugs, are you in possession?
    Jamie Conway: Negative.
    Tad Allagash: Not even a single line for young Tad?
    Jamie Conway: Sorry.
    Tad Allagash: Not even a mirror to lick?
    Tad Allagash: Doing a little writing, are we? [reads paper in typewriter] Yeah! "Dead Amanda"! I told ya, you get more nookie than you can shake a fucking stick at if you just told people your wife was dead.
    Jamie Conway: I hit the wrong key.
    Tad Allagash: Ready to roll? The girls are waiting.
    Jamie Conway: Right. Where are we rolling to?
    Tad Allagash: Into the heart of the night! Wherever there are dances to be danced, drugs to be hoovered, women to be Allagashed. It's a dirty job, Jamie, but somebody's got to do it.
    Jamie Conway: We sort of split up.
    Theresa: Too bad for you. She was yummy! Sort of the slinky girl-next-door look. Very ingenuous.
    Walter Tyler: So how's Clara behaving?
    Jamie Conway: Same as usual. Like a fourth-grade tyrant.
    Walter Tyler: I've always wanted to ask somebody in Fact - does Clara piss in the men's room or the ladies'?
    Jamie Conway: I don't believe she pisses.
    Alex Hardy: I started off as an office boy at the magazine - got published every so often. I used to write satirical sketches on Manhattan highlife.
    Jamie Conway: I know, I used to read that stuff. Amazing.
    Alex Hardy: Yeah. A lot more fun than being an editor. All I do as an editor is read a lot of undisciplined, untalented crap.
    Vicky: Are you sure you're all right?
    Jamie Conway: Well, my brain is trying to find a way out of its skull - and I'm afraid of just about everything; but, I'm okay.

## Taglines

* All that glitters is not gold.
* It's 6.00am. Do you know where you are?
* He's a long way from Kansas.

## External links

* Bright Lights, Big City quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Bright Lights, Big City at Rotten Tomatoes
* Bright Lights, Big City at Allmovie
* Bright Lights, Big City at Mojo