Re: Quotes

Here's one of my favorite Salinger quotes:
"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 is a liquid."
 It's from "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period." I think it's such a profound and beautiful line. The idea of solid happiness and liquid joy seems incredibly right to me, a wonderful expression of the exquisitely ungraspable feeling of elation. Sometimes, though, I think that people latch onto the idea part and forget just how wonderfully crafted the whole sentence is. "The fact is always obvious much too late..." I think the clause adds immeasurably to my sense of the quote. I love the charmingly hyperbolic wording--ALWAYS obvious (is it?) MUCH too late (for what?). It conveys an emphatic urgency behind the speaker's words, borne of real knowing.

Whenever I read this quote, I feel this wobbly thrill, like a childhood friend has just whispered a strange and wonderful secret into my ear, a secret that I had long known but had somehow forgotten. And I feel the joy seeping out of its container...

Funny thing is, "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" isn't even one of my favorite pieces from _Nine Stories_. Ha!

>Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 18:23:20 -0500
>From: "Leah Feder"
>Subject: [none]

>I was wondering if anybody could think about anything particularly quotable
>written by JD Salinger to use as my senior quote . . .I'm a huge fan and I
>think it would be incredibly fitting to use one of his as my final farewell
>to high school.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Thu Dec 5 06:50:13 2002