J.D. Salinger quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from J.D. Salinger on Wise Famous Quotes.

The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding

I ignored the flashes of lightning all around me. They either had your number on them or they didn't.

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

I was surrounded by jerks. I'm not kidding.

One thing? One thing I like? Okay.

That cat was a spy. You had to take a pot shot at it. It was a very clever German midget dressed up in a cheap fur coat.

I love to write and I assure you I write regularly ... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.

I was surrounded by phonies ... They were coming in the goddam window.

I can be quite sarcastic when I'm in the mood.

I didn't want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck.

But fishing, as we know, in libraries or anywhere else, is a tricky business, with never a certainty of who's going to catch whom.

is he crazy?" --Harcourt-Brace editor on Holden Caulfield

I do very emphatically believe there is an enormous amount of the androgynous in any all-or-nothing prose writer, or even a would-be one.

How long should a man's legs be? Long enough to touch the ground.

You don't always have to get too sexy to get to know a girl.

Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat.

If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm.

Sentimentality is loving something more than God does.

Wuttaya say."
"Bill's inside," Lucille said. "Get me a drink, willya, Harry?"
"Sure.

How old are you? I asked her. "Old enough to know better." she said.

Give me an honest con man any day.

That's depressing, when somebody says "please" to you.

As you damned well know, we never change much in our hearts.

Father said I have no sense of humor at all. He said I was unequipped to meet life because I have no sense of humor.

I'm a condition, not a man.

That's something that drives me crazy. When people say something twice that way, after you admit it the first time.

Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly

Look at 'em,' he said. 'Goddam fools.' 'Who?' said Ginnie. 'I don't know. Anybody.

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

Did you see more glass?

Me, myself and I.

An Aesthetic Saint

For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands.

That's something that annoys the hell out of me- I mean if somebody says the coffee's all ready and it isn't

I love you I love you I love you. Do you actually know I've only danced with you twice in eleven months?

Lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most.

Indeed, all forms of human folly and beastiality touch a very symphathetic chord within our breasts!

If you're not in
the mood, you can't do that stuff right.

Almost every damn school in the world gets out earlier for Christmas break than the school I go to.

It's boring to do that every two minutes.

In my opinion, if you really want to know, half of the nastiness in the world is stirred up by people who aren't using their true egos.

Forgive the pessimism, if not the sonority. But I know how much you demand from a thing, you little bastard.

After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains.

Sometimes I see me dead in the rain.

Oh, this happiness is strong stuff.

I purely came over because I thought you looked extremely lonely. You have an extremely sensitive face.

The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.

Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes.

In every school I've gone to, all the athletic bastards stick together.

Life is a gift horse in my opinion.

Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.

Happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.

My god, there's absolutely nothing tenth-rate about you, and yet you're up to your neck at this minute in tenth-rate thinking.

I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.

If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible.

He seemed unaware of the messiness of the arrangement.

Bessie: 'Why don't you get married?'
Zooey: 'I like riding in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.

It is too ironical to bear, but I give you my word that valorous people require far more protec-tion than meets the eye.

I don't want to scare you," he said, "but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause.

But I'm Crazy. I swear to God I am.

Some people you shouldn't kid, even if they deserve it.

I could happily lie down and die sometimes.

Girls. You never know what they're going to think.

We don't talk, we hold forth. We don't converse, we expound.

The swimming stinks here because there are no waves even little waves. What good is it without any ways and you never get scared or turned all over

A story never ends. The narrator is usually provided with a nice, artistic spot for his voice to stop, but that's about all.

Where you girls from? Don't answer if you don't feel like it. I don't want you to strain yourself.

I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school.

[ ... ] don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

I am not exactly wallowing in guilt at the moment, but guilt is guilt.It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified.

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

This is of unspeakable importance. Please send any books on the structure of the human heart that I have not read

New York is terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night.

Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage.

He said I was unequipped to meet life because I had no sense of humor.

She was not one for emptying her face of expression.

People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, ... ,and he had very red hair.

I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to God I am.

Naturally, I never told him I thought he was a terrific whistler. I mean you don't just go up to somebody and say, 'You're a terrific whistler.

Then again you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.'

Though we've talked and talked and talked, we've all agreed not to say a word.

I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work.

She gave me a pain in the ass, but she was very good looking.

It isn't very serious, I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.

Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

If I'd wanted this place to fill up with every fat Irish rose that passes by, I'd've said so.

My opinions are all too frequently too damn harsh for words.

I mean not try to analyze everything to death for once, if possible, especially me.

What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in awhile.

I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

I mean he was mostly a Year Book kind of handsome guy.

My God, think of the opportunities and thrusts that lie ahead when one knows without a shred of doubt how commonplace and normal one is at heart!

Jesus, life has its share of honorable thrills if one but keeps one's eyes open!

How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?

I suspect that money is a far greater distraction for the artist than hunger.

The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling.

If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me.

Yes, I have an ulcer, for Chrissake. This is Kaliyuga, buddy, the Iron Age. Anybody over sixteen without an ulcer's a goddam spy.

As a matter of fact, I'm the only dumb one in the family.