J.D. Salinger is dead. ;( One of the few great literary geniuses still alive in 2010. No disrespect to Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Jean Simmons, and all the celebrities who have died recently, but here is the first "public figure" (though he was anything but) who's death has made my heart sink. I have yet to meet a person who did not at least respect what a great work of fiction "The Catcher in the Rye" is, if not absolutely adore it. To say it's a cult classic is to largely diminish it's value among youths. For me, "The Catcher in the Rye" is the first piece of literature that made me enjoy reading. There's a little Holden Caulfield in every teenager. I know so many of my friends and colleagues, young and old, who place this book in their top five favorite pieces of literature ever. It's probably number three on my list...
Anyways, counting down my top 15 favorite excerpts from perhaps the most quotable book of all time...(feel free to respond with your own favorites)
15. "We horsed around a little bit in the cab on the way to the theatre. At first she didn't want to, because she had her lipstick on and all, but I was being seductive as hell and she didn't have any alternative.... Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of this big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to god I am."
14. "All morons hate it when you call them a moron."
13. "You should of heard the crowd....You would have puked.....They were the exact same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn't funny. I swear to god, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it."
12. "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and someone asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible."
11. I told him to go wash his moron face- which was a pretty childish thing to say, but I was mad as hell."
10. "That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "F*** you" right under your nose."
9. "Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake."
8. "I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot."
7. "You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart."
6. "Most girls, if you hold hands with them, their goddamn hand dies on you, or else the think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you."
5. "In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down. I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples. If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, that poor bastard."
4. “People always think something’s all true."
3. "These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing.... He'd always want everybody to go back to their own room and shut up when he was finished being the big shot. The thing he was afraid of, he was afraid somebody'd say something smarter than he had."
2. "I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it."
1. "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
Rest in Peace
J.D. Salinger 1919-2010
