How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #1
I had a job for eleven years and then I didn't, it was that fast. All around the country, magazines began shuttering […] Writers (my kind of writers: aspiring novelists, ruminative thinkers, people whose brains don't work quick enough to blog or link or tweet, basically old, stubborn blowhards) were through. We were like women's hat makers or buggy-whip manufacturers: Our time was done. (1.9)
Losing his beloved writing job is a giant blow to not just Nick's life, but his enormous ego as well. As someone with a big part of his identity rooted in his job, having his deliberate writing process replaced by the fast-paced brevity of the Internet gives him a feeling of uselessness that eventually takes its toll on his marriage.
Quote #2
"What do you teach?" Gilpin asked.
"Journalism, magazine journalism." A girl texting and walking forgot the nuances of the latter and almost ran into me. She stepped to the side without glancing up. It made me feel cranky, off my lawn! old. (11.33-34)
The fact that Nick has an encounter with the very texting-based lifestyle that's put him out of a job even as he's explaining his career to Gilpin just adds insult to injury. That and it's just plain annoying when people walk and text at the same time and then run into you.
Quote #3
I felt a sudden affinity for the troop of Blue Book men, pictured myself walking into their bitter encampment, waving a white flag: I am your brother. I used to work in print too. The computers stole my job too. (13.76)
The death of the publishing industry at the hands of the Internet isn't just a New York thing—it's hit North Carthage, too. The Blue Book Boys—a gang of angry, unemployed men who used to work at a factory that made exam booklets—take out their hostility through violent acts of crime performed at their headquarters, the abandoned mall. Technology may have brought progress, but it's also made some people so ticked off that they're driven to harm others.