God, I Wish You Could Have Been

I Told Her I Loved Her And All. It Was A Lie, Of Course, But The Thing Is, I Meant It When I Said It. I'm Crazy. I Swear To God I Am.

I'm Aware That Many Of My Friends Will Be Saddened And Shocked, Or Shock-saddened, Over Some Of The Chapters In 'the Catcher In The Rye.' Some Of My Best Friends Are Children. In Fact, All My Best Friends Are Children. It's Almost Unbearable For Me To Realize That My Book Will Be Kept On A Shelf Out Of Their Reach.

I'm Not Afraid To Compete. It's Just The Opposite. Don't You See That? I'm Afraid I Will Compete — That's What Scares Me. That's Why I Quit The Theatre Department. 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. I'm Sick Of Myself And Everybody Else That Wants To Make Some Kind Of A Splash.

I Don't Hate Too Many Guys. What I May Do, I May Hate Them For A Little While, Like This Guy Stradlater I Knew At Pencey, And This Other Boy, Robert Ackley. I Hate Them Once In A While—i Admit It—but It Doesn't Last Too Long, Is What I Mean. After A While, If I Didn't See Them, If They Didn't Come In The Room, Or If I Didn't See Them In The Dining Room For A Couple Of Meals, I Sort Of Missed Them. I Mean I Sort Of Missed Them.

You Can Hit My Father Over The Head With A Chair And He Won't Wake Up, But My Mother, All You Have To Do To My Mother Is Cough Somewhere In Siberia And She'll Hear You.