I'm leaving Pencey

Old Spencer, my history teacher, wrote me a note saying he wanted to see me before I went home. He knew I wasn't coming back to Pencey. So I stopped by his house today.

"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules." He said.

Game my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing.

All the hot-shots go on living with their Corvettes and their buddies and their girlfriends. And they pay good money to watch phony movies, then they come out and say how grand it was.

If there's one word I hate, it's grand. It's so goddamn phony I could puke every time I hear it.

But what's a game about it when you're not a hot-shot? You don't go to the movies or watch the game with your friends. You spend your time just trying to survive in a school full of phonies. You can't have a decent intellectual conversation with anyone - you can't even read a decent book without getting distracted - and all you want to do is run away and hide in the woods where you can watch the birds fly south for the winter.