Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

But there was this one boy, Richard Kinsella. He didnt stick to the point too much and they were always yelling "Digression!" at him. It was terrible, because in the first place, he was a very nervous guy - I mean he was a very nervous guy - and his lips were always shaking whenever it was his time to make a speech, and you could hardly hear him if you were sitting way in the back of the room. When his lips sort of quit shaking a little bit, though, I liked his speeches better than anybody else's. He practically flunked the course, though, too. He got a D plus because they kept yelling "Digression!" at him all the time. For instance, he made this speech about this farm his father bought in Vermont. They kept yelling "Digression!" at him the whole time he was making it, and this teacher, Mr. Vinson, gave him an F on it because he hadn't told what kind of animals and vegetables and stuff grew on the farm and all. What he did was, Richard Kinsella, he'd start telling you all about that stuff - then all of a sudden he'd start telling you about this letter his mother got from his uncle, and how his uncle got polio and all when he was forty-two years old, and how he wouldn't let anybody come to see him in the hospital because he didn't want anybody to see him with a brace on. It didnt'have too much to do with the farm - I admit it- but it was nice.

This must be my favourite part of the whole book. Don't know why, but whenever I think of Catcher in the Rye, this part always comes to mind. It reminds me of those moments when you're talking to someone and all of a sudden you realise that you have no idea what the hell it is that you are talking about or how you came to think of the subject you're discussing, because it is completely different from the subject you started the conversation with. I think that those conversations actually are the best conversations there are.