All quotes are from Franny & Zooey
I begin by relating and feeling like Mr. Salinger must have met me, or at least met the people I've met and had the same reaction:
"It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so--I don't know--not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid, necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless--and sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way."
"I feel so funny. I think I'm going crazy. Maybe I'm already crazy."
"You take a look around your college campus, and the world, and politics, and one season of summer stock, and you listen to the conversation of a bunch of nitwit college students, and you decide that everything's ego, ego, ego, and the only intelligent thing for a girl to do is to lie around and shave her head and say the Jesus prayer and beg God for a little mystical experience that will make her nice and happy."
Then he follows those sorts of paragraphs up with this and I see how wise he really was:
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
"The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to - be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want to--there's nothing wrong in trying."
It's high time for me to re-read this book.
"It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so--I don't know--not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid, necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless--and sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way."
"I feel so funny. I think I'm going crazy. Maybe I'm already crazy."
"You take a look around your college campus, and the world, and politics, and one season of summer stock, and you listen to the conversation of a bunch of nitwit college students, and you decide that everything's ego, ego, ego, and the only intelligent thing for a girl to do is to lie around and shave her head and say the Jesus prayer and beg God for a little mystical experience that will make her nice and happy."
Then he follows those sorts of paragraphs up with this and I see how wise he really was:
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
"The only thing you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for God, if you want to - be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want to--there's nothing wrong in trying."
It's high time for me to re-read this book.