Holden Caulfield Quotes

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

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

Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.

~ J.d. Salinger

Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them... You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring.

~ J.d. Salinger

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

~ J.d. Salinger

And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.

~ J.d. Salinger

When I really worry about something, I don´t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don´t go. I´m too worried to go. I don´t want to interrupt my worrying to go.

~ J.d. Salinger

Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.

~ J.d. Salinger