The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

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

I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen. Sometimes, I act a lot older than I am--I really do. But people never notice it. People never notice anything.

Why's it so sunny?" she repeated. Zooey observed her rather narrowly. "I bring the sun wherever I go, buddy," he said.

Some people you shouldn't kid, even if they deserve it.

My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. he was left handed. The thing that was descriptive about it though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat