Zooey said... It would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody good-bye in the morning thinking they were your own family.

I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy.

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.

It's so silly. All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh, everybody's done it thousands of times. Just because they don't remember, it doesn't mean they haven't done it.

One day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of.

I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete - that's what scares me.

I love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.