JD Salinger

JD Salinger passed this morning at the age of 91.  Salinger, one critic put it best, "he was in this world, but not of it."

I read my first JD Salinger book in high school. The Catcher in the Rye is the first book I ever stayed up all to read, laughed out loud and cried. My favorite teacher gave me Franny and Zoe as a gift which I ate up as well.

I suggest reading Salinger's obit at the new york times and add The Catcher in the Rye to your re-read list.


here are some  favorite salinger quotes:

That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can. - holden caulfield

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. -holden caulfield

I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, "It's a secret between he and I." Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. - mr. antolini

The true poet has no choice of material.  The material plainly chooses him, not he it. - from Seymour: an Introduction 

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.- holden caulfield

i was sixteen then, and i'm seventeen now, and sometimes i act like i'm about thirteen. it's really ironical, because i'm six foot two and a half and i have gray hair. i really do. the one side of my head-the right side-is full of millions of gray hairs. i've had them ever since i was a kid. and yet i still act sometimes like i was only about twelve. everybody says that, especially my father. it's partly true, too, but it isnt all true. people always think something's all true. i dont give a damn, except that i get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. sometimes i act a lot older than i am-i really do-but people never notice it. people never notice anything. - holden caulfield

it was nice, though, when we got out of the dining room. there were about three inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down like a madman. it looked pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing around all over the place. it was very childish, but everybody was really enjoying themselves. - holden caulfield