Because perfect sentences are a kind of prayer, I offer these of Salinger's:
She was sixteen, and beautiful in an immediate yet perfectly slow way. She had immense eyes that always seemed in danger of capsizing in their own innocence. Her hands were very pale brown, with slender, actionless fingers. When she sat down, she did the only sensible thing with her beautiful hands there was to be done: she placed them on her lap and left them there. In brief, she was probably the first appreciable thing of beauty I had seen that struck me as wholly legitimate.
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.
I don't really feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it's always nice, I'll grant you, if he has one.
And I have one.
-- Janet
That's so beautiful. Loved yesterday's article in the NYT about how he wasn't a recluse at all, at least to his neighbors. Just a pretty quiet guy, living a quiet life among other "towns people" in New Hampshire. Made me want to move there. Sigh.
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