How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Story.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
But at twenty-three I was the sort of young man who responds to all public injury of his person, short of a fractured skull, by giving out a hollow, subnormal-sounding laugh. ("Roof Beam" 2.15)
You get the sense reading Salinger that he has a gift for observing people. This might be just the way a 23-year-old man would react to public injury.
Quote #2
To get back to the plot, I remember that while all three - the Matron of Honor, her husband, and Mrs. Silsburn - were conjunctively staring at me and watching me cough, I glanced over at the tiny elderly man in the back. He was still staring fixedly straight ahead of him. I noticed, almost with gratitude, that his feet didn't quite touch the floor. They looked like old and valued friends of mine. ("Roof Beam" 2.47)
Buddy takes comfort in the bride's father's uncle. At first, he is the only guest in the car who seems to have no interest in attacking Buddy for being Seymour's brother. The uncle's importance will grow as the story continues, though, so keep an eye out.
Quote #3
For an instant, in fact, as I looked at her, I had a very uncomfortable notion that she might even know that I was Seymour's brother. It wasn't a thought to dwell on. Instead, I looked her unsquarely in the eye and said, "He was a chiropodist." ("Roof Beam" 2.51)
In a way, Buddy is defending his brother by lying to the Matron of Honor. By protecting information about Seymour, he shields his brother from her scrutiny.
Quote #4
Mrs. Silsburn said nothing, and I didn't look at her to sec just how seriously she'd been affronted by the Matron of Honor's remark. I remember, though, that I was impressed, in a peculiar sense, with the Matron of Honor's tone of apology for her little slip about 'crazy aunts and uncles'. It had been a genuine apology, but not an embarrassed and, still better, not an obsequious one, and for a moment I had a feeling that, for all her stagy indignation and showy grit, there was something bayonetlike about her, something not altogether unadmirable. […] The point is, however, that right then, for the first time, a small wave of prejudice against the missing groom passed over me, a just perceptible little whitecap of censure for his unexplained absenteeism. ("Roof Beam" 2.61)
This is an interesting passage, because it complicates several elements of the story: our understanding of the Matron of Honor's character, our understanding of Buddy, the social tensions in the car, and our classification of characters are either likeable (namely Buddy) or antagonistic (pretty much everybody else).
Quote #5
She gets a vast satisfaction out of telling her friends that she's engaged to the Billy Black who was on "It's a Wise Child" for years. ("Roof Beam" 4.7)
This should make us worry about Muriel's motivations for marrying Seymour, as well as the basis of her love for him. Buddy earlier worried that people misunderstood Seymour, largely on account of his childhood fame. Perhaps Muriel, like Mrs. Fedder and the Matron of Honor, misunderstand Seymour's real nature.
Quote #6
"She's an irritating, opinionated woman, a type Buddy can't stand. I don't think he could see her for what she is. A person deprived, for life, of any understanding or taste for the main current of poetry that flows through things, all things. She might as well be dead, and yet she goes on living, stopping off at delicatessens, seeing her analyst, consuming a novel every night, putting on her girdle, plotting for Muriel's health and prosperity. I love her. I find her unimaginably brave." ("Roof Beam" 4.8)
Again, look at the way Salinger complicates his characters and doesn't allow us to classify them as likeable or antagonistic. Just as Buddy had a moment of admiration for the Matron of Honor in the guest car, so Seymour experiences the same thing for Mrs. Fedder.
Quote #7
(Surely the one and only great poet the psychoanalysts have had was Freud himself; he had a little car trouble of his own, no doubt, but who in his right mind could deny that an epic poet was at work?) ("Seymour" 1.2)
Salinger generally appears to be anti-Freud – he mocks psychoanalysis several times in this and other stories, and even suggests that it may be at the root of some of Seymour's problems. For Buddy to express such admiration here is unexpected, as is the way he pays homage – after all, the title of "poet" seems to be the highest honor in Buddy's eyes.
Quote #8
At any rate, his character lends itself to no legitimate sort of narrative compactness that I know of, and I can't conceive of anyone, least of all myself, trying to write him off in one shot or in one fairly simple series of sittings, whether arranged by the month or the year. ("Seymour" 1.4)
We quickly see that "Seymour: an Introduction" isn't just about the story of Seymour. It's also about the process of writing and, in particular, of the Herculean task (to borrow a phrase from Salinger) of capturing the essence of so large a person in between two bookends. Buddy's feelings of admiration render this attempt essentially futile.
Quote #9
I intend very soon now - it's just a matter of days or weeks, I tell myself - to stand aside from about a hundred and fifty of the poems and let the first willing publisher who owns a pressed morning suit and a fairly clean pair of gray gloves bear them away, right off to his shady presses, where they'll very likely be constrained in a two-tone dust jacket. ("Seymour" 1.9)
Although he is explicitly talking about Seymour's book of poems, "constrained" is a powerful verb here that gets at the heart of narrator Buddy's own writing difficulties – constraining his brother in a relatively short amount of space. The tirade that follows – against editors, readers, but most vehemently against critics – may also have much to do with Buddy's reluctance to properly document his brother in a series of published works. How can he defend his brother (as presented in his writing) against the critics who will read Buddy's own work?
Quote #10
But from watching the guests for some three hours, from grinning at them, from, I think, loving them, Seymour - without asking any questions first - brought very nearly all the guests, one or two at a time, and without any mistakes, their own true coats, and all the men involved their hats. ("Seymour" 1.10)
Notice the word that Buddy uses to describe Seymour's relationship these people: love. Despite their insularity and detachment, the Glass family ultimately loves all of humanity. This has a lot to do with the ending of "Seymour" (and of Franny and Zooey, for that matter), so stay tuned.