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.

Nobody who's really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies

People always clap for the wrong reasons.

He had a theory, Walt did, that the religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world.

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first one who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.

He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.

It was the last game of the year and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didn't win.