Franny and Zooey

by J.D. Salinger

Sometimes I think that knowledge—when it’s knowledge for knowledge’s sake, anyway—is the worst of all.

“As a matter of simple logic, there’s no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who’s greedy for material treasure—or even intellectual treasure—and the man who’s greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure’s treasure, God damn it, and it seems to me that ninety per cent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are.”