Holden Caufield: “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?”

Phoebe Caufield: “What?  Stop swearing.”

“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’?  I’d like – ”

“It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said.  “It’s a poem.  By Robert Burns.”

“I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”

She was right, though.  It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.”  I didn’t know it then, though.

“I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,'” I said.  “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me.  And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That’s all I’d do all day.  I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.  I know It’s crazy.”

Sam Snyder:  “That’s not crazy in my book, Holden.  Not crazy at all.”