चला गया कैचर इन द राइ

अभी अभी खबर लगी परसों जे. डी. सैलिंगर का देहान्त हो गया.

जीवन में पढ़ी किताबों में अगर मुझसे किन्हीं पांच को बल्कि किन्हीं तीन को चुनने को कहा जाए तो जे. डी. सैलिंगर की ’कैचर इन द राइ’ उनमें ज़रूर होगी.

न पढ़ी हो तो पढ़िये.

फ़िलहाल जिस किताब ने मुझे स्कूल के दिनों से आज तक इस कदर ख़ुशी बख़्शी है, उसके सर्जक को नमन करता हुआ उस से कुछ उद्धरण लगा रहा हूं :



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What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.
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I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it.
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It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.
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People always think something's all true.
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People never notice anything.
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I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.
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When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go.
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All morons hate it when you call them a moron.
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In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.
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It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.
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Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact.
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I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.
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There isn't any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you're with some girl that really knocks you out.
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It's no fun to be yellow. Maybe I'm not all yellow. I don't know. I think maybe I'm just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn't give much of a damn if they lose their gloves.

येस जे. डी.
इट्स नो फ़न टू बी येलो!
टेक केयर.