Nine Stories

by J.D. Salinger

“Fathers and teachers, I ponder ‘What is hell?’ I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.

The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.

I mean they don’t seem able to love us just the way we are. They don’t seem able to love us unless they can keep changing us a little bit. They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more.