Salinger is a master of the memorable detail, the seemingly random gesture, the debris of mundane daily operations, the stuff that is left out of any analysis.

To be a good friend remember that we are human magnets: that like attracts like and that as we give we get.

Books are delightful when prosperity happily smiles; when adversity threatens, they are inseparable comforters. They give strength to human compacts, nor are grave opinions brought forward without books. Arts and sciences, the benefits of which no mind can calculate. depend upon books.

Let no one expect anything of certainty from astronomy, lest if anyone take as true that which has been constructed for another use, he go away... a bigger fool than when he came to it.

Our court dockets are so crowded today it would be better to refer to it as the overdue process of law.

One of the most gracious dispensations of God concerning His saints is their lovely unawareness of sanctity. The nearer they move to Him, the more conscious are they of sin. If it were impossible at times not to note their own growth in grace, it were impossible also to forget that it was all by His power. If they could be persuaded to admit their progress and talk of it at all, the language of their heart would be this: 'If God could do this in me, He could do it in anyone

If any writer thinks the world is full of middle class people of nice sensibilities, then he is out of his mind.