I'm one of the little foxes that spoil the grapes.

Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.

It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques.

I was surrounded by jerks. I'm not kidding.

There isn't anyone anywhere who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

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