"She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty." - "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," pp.3-4

"He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies caliber 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple." "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," p. 26

"Twenty minutes later, they were finishing their first highball in the living room and were talking in the manner peculiar, probably limited, to...