This fall I think you're riding for—it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't.

I held hands with her all the time...that doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something.

She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the light bulbs.

Sleep tight, ya morons!

Franny was staring at the little blotch of sunshine with a special intensity, as if she were considering lying down in it.

I know. I'm very hard to talk to. I realize that.