I wish…you could read letters you wrote 46 years ago. It is very painful reading.

More from Said at age 68. As quoted in 'In Search of J.D. Salinger' by Ian Hamilton.

• I am kind of a paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
• I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone…which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.
• Life is a gift horse in my opinion.