J. D. Salinger on life and death

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.

I don’t know. Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They’re always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

John Lennon1940–1980Double Fantasy (1980), “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

James Dean1931–1955

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948

• Education