"and I look up, and I see Dr. Jonathan Zizmor’s curiously drooping eyes staring down at me from one of his circus-colored advertisements and quietly, coldly judging the layers of city grime and stress on the skin of my face, I cannot help but think of the following: But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Your Daily Dose of Pretentiousness is now over."

— Caroline McCarthy: Sometimes, when I ride the subway