The color of his pallor, however, was a curiously basic white - unmixed, that is, with the greens and yellows of guilt or abject contrition. It was very like the standard bloodlessness in the face of a small boy who loves animals to distraction, all animals, and who has just seen his favourite, bunny-loving sister's expression as she opened the box containing his birthday present to her - a freshly caught young cobra, with a red ribbon tied in an awkward bow around its neck.
J. D. SalingerMy god, there's absolutely nothing tenth-rate about you, and yet you're up to your neck at this minute in tenth-rate thinking.
J. D. SalingerI have scars on my hands from touching certain people...Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me. Other things, too. Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand. Oh God, if I'm anything by a clinical name, I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
J. D. SalingerSomething else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it will begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. Whatโll fit and, maybe, what it wonโt. After a while, youโll have an idea what kind of thoughts your mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that wonโt suit you, arenโt becoming to you. Youโll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.
J. D. Salinger