J.D. Salinger, dead at age 91. God help those phonies.
J. D. Salinger, certainly was to me and to many others, one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. He died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H. He was 91. Read on, for the New York Times obituary on him, and later I'll post my own thoughts and links to other tributes.
You raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam 'unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right — God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.
Franny and Zooey (1961)