"Phooey, I say, on all white-shoe college boys who edit their campus literary magazines. Give me an honest con man any day."

That's from Salinger's Frannie and Zooey which I was reading on a plane today. Coincidentally, I was absolutely surrounded by phonies.

"And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth."


A late fragment written by Raymond Carver shortly before his death. It was found on a crumpled piece of paper on his desk that was nearly thrown away by accident. Now, it's the epitaph on his grave: six perfect lines that in the end are all any of us want.