JD Salinger

"I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive."
-John Hodgman

I've been trying since Thursday to write something that could fully encompass how I feel about his passing. I didn't know him personally. He wasn't my uncle. He was 91 years old so it's not like we weren't expecting it. But it still tore me up a little. Catcher in the Rye was the only novel I actually really studied - with two packages of post-it notes. I have read it almost as many times as I've read the Harry Potter series (17, if you're wondering). But I still couldn't tell you how much it meant to me. So instead, I'm going to leave my favorite Catcher quotes, and hope it's enough.


"You know that song, 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'?... I'd like-"
"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."
"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."
She was right, though. It is 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though.
"I thought it was "If a body catch a body,' " I said.
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

People never notice anything.

I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it.

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

People always think something's all true.

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. . . . Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.

I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me... Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, 'Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie.' And then when I'd reach the end of the street without disappearing, I'd THANK HIM.

Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway.

It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.

Don't ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody.