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J.d. Salinger Quotes

J.d. Salinger quote from classy quote

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Holden Caulfield Life Lying

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Holden Interesting Life

It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don't know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Life

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason…Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Angsty Inspirational

when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write Fuck you right under your nose.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Humor

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.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Fuck You Holden Humor Signs

In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Humor

You asked me how to get out of the finite dimensions when I feel like it. I certainly don't use logic when I do it. Logic's the first thing you have to get rid of.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Duality Meditation Philosophy Teddy

I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Truth

It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Absolutes Holden Truth

All these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, and the whole bunch of them - thousands of them - singing “Come All Ye Faithful” like mad. Big deal. It’s supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I can’t see anything religious or pretty, for God’s sake, about a bunch of actors carrying crucifixes all over the stage. When they all finished and started going out the boxes again, you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette of something. I saw it with old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes and all. I said old jesus probably would’ve puked if he could see it.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Fake Human Nature Humanity People Truth

I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word 'wisdom' mentioned!

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger College Education Wisdom

And I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Ambivalence Confusion Grief Happiness

I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Happiness

I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Happiness Intelligence

I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they're only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Inspirational Romance

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Holden Holden Caulfield Hope Run Save

When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Cemetery Death Funeral Rites Holden

who wants flowers when youre dead? nobody.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Death Flowers

Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Death Holden

He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Bitterness Death Family Forgiveness Suicide

When the weather's nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie's grave. I went with them a couple of times, but I cut it out. In the first place, I don't enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery. Surrounded by dead guys and tombstones and all. It wasn't too bad when the sun was out, but twice—twice—we were there when it started to rain. It was awful. It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place. All the visitors that were visiting the cemetery started running like hell over to their cars. That's what nearly drove me crazy. All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner—everybody except Allie. I couldn't stand it. I know it's only his body and all that's in the cemetery, and his soul's in Heaven and all that crap, but I couldn't stand it anyway. I just wished he wasn't there.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Death Holden

You know Sven? The man who takes care of the gym?' he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. 'Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he'd have a very, very bad night's sleep, because he's very fond of that dog. But when he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. He'd know it was only a dream.'Nicholson nodded. 'What's the point exactly?'The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same thing. Only he wouldn't know it. I mean he wouldn't wake up till he died himself.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Death Dream Illusion Teddy

John Keats / John Keats / John / Please put your scarf on.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Glass More Poetry See

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Authors Books Literature Reading Writing

Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Holden Writing

I think it should be done over, Buddy. …Please make peace with your wit. It's not going to go away, Buddy. To dump it on your own advice would be as bad and unnatural as dumping your adjectives and your adverbs because Prof. B. wants you to. What does he know about it? What do you really know about your own wit?I've been sitting here tearing up notes to you. I keep starting to say things like 'This one is wonderfully constructed,' and 'The conversation between the two cops is terrific.' So I'm hedging. I'm not sure why. I started to get a little nervous right after you began to read. It sounded like the beginning of something your arch-enemy Bob B. calls a rattling good story. Don't you think he would call this a step in the right direction? Doesn't that worry you? Even what is funny about the woman on the back of the truck doesn't sound like something you think is funny. It sounds much more like something that you think is universally considered funny. I feel gypped. Does that make you mad? You can say our relatedness spoils my judgement. It worries me enough. But I'm also just a reader. Are you a writer or just a writer of rattling good stories. I mind getting a rattling good story from you.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Writing

Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Seymour An Introduction Writing

You can't stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Authority Education Teachers

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.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger College Education

The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I'm not kidding.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Education School Young Adult

I know more damn perverts, at schools and all, than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Funny

I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Books Introvert Solitude

God bless ladies with costly, tasteful clothes and touching, dirty fingernails that champion gifted, foreign poets and decorate the library in beautiful, melancholy fashion! My God, this universe is nothing to snicker at!

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Books Love Woman

But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Family Fear Questions

I am always saying Glad to've met you to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Friendship Insincerity Manners

The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Life Love People Universe

He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Allie Army Catcher Caulfield Db Holden Rye Salinger War

You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Death Memory War

I always pick a gorgeous time to fall over a suitcase or something.

~ J.d. Salinger

J.d. Salinger Catcher In The Rye Humour J D Salinger
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