15 quotes
The religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
How in hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don't even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it's right in front of your nose?
Franny and Zooey (1961)
Jesus realized there is no separation from God.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
I like to ride in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
You still can't love a Jesus as much as you'd like to who did and said a couple of things he was at least reported to have said or done — and you know it.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
I'm just interested in finding out what the hell goes. I mean do you have to be a goddam bohemian type, or dead, for Chrissake, to be a real poet? What do you want — some bastard with wavy hair?
Franny and Zooey (1961)
He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
I swear to you, you're missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only. To endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
Jesus knew — knew — that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls — but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up?
Franny and Zooey (1961)
Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.
Franny and Zooey (1961)
Lane was speaking now as someone does who has been monopolizing conversation for a good quarter of an hour or so and who believes he has just hit a stride where his voice can do absolutely no wrong.
Franny and Zooey (1961)