Unreachable dreams, an important theme in Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye"

…

…know what will happen in the future: "A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I'm going to apply myself when I go back to school next September. It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?" (213). Holden now knows that he must live life by the moment and not with quixotic ideals.