J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

"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."

"And I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight."

"He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving."

"I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting."

"It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don't know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way."

"I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect."

"I didn't want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck."