Franny and Zooey

by J.D. Salinger

I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.”

“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.”

I can tell you exactly what I do. I make everybody feel that he doesn’t really want to do any good work but that he just wants to get work done that will be thought good by everyone he knows—the critics, the sponsors, the public, even his children’s schoolteacher. That’s what I do. That’s the worst I do.”

I mean you don’t just despise what they represent—you despise them. It’s too damn personal, Franny. I mean it.