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But Doctors Talk About Cells As If They Had Such Unlimited Importance All By Themselves. As If They Didn't Really Belong To The Person That Has Them." Teddy Brushed Back His Hair From His Forehead With One Hand. "i Grew My Own Body," He Said. "nobody Else Did It For Me. So If I Grew It, I Must Have Known How To Grow It. Unconsciously, At Least. I May Have Lost The Conscious Knowledge Of How To Grow It Sometime In The Last Few Hundred Thousand Years, But The Knowledge Is Still There, Because—obviously—i've Used It.

-J. D. Salinger

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But Doctors Talk About

J. D. Salinger

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But Doctors Talk About Cells As If They Had Such Unlimited Importance All By Themselves. As If They Didn't Really Belong To The Person That Has Them." Teddy Brushed Back His Hair From His Forehead With One Hand. "i Grew My Own Body," He Said. "nobody Else Did It For Me. So If I Grew It, I Must Have Known How To Grow It. Unconsciously, At Least. I May Have Lost The Conscious Knowledge Of How To Grow It Sometime In The Last Few Hundred Thousand Years, But The Knowledge Is Still There, Because—obviously—i've Used It.

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I Was About Half In Love With Her By The Time We Sat Down. That's The Thing About Girls. Every Time They Do Something Pretty... You Fall Half In Love With Them, And Then You Never Know Where The Hell You Are.

If I Were A Piano Player, I'd Play It In The Goddam Closet.

The More Expensive A School Is, The More Crooks It Has — I'm Not Kidding.

I Know. I'm Very Hard To Talk To. I Realize That.

The Fact Is Always Obvious Much Too Late, But The Most Singular Difference Between Happiness And Joy Is That Happiness Is A Solid And Joy A Liquid.

Yet A Real Artist, I've Noticed, Will Survive Anything. (even Praise, I Happily Suspect.)

Listen," He Said. "if You Was A Fish, Mother Nature'd Take Care Of You, Wouldn't She? Right? You Don't Think Them Fish Just Die When It Gets To Be Winter, Do Ya?" No, But--" You're Goddam Right They Don't

I Said Old Jesus Probably Would've Puked If He Could See It - All Those Fancy Costumes And All. Sally Said I Was A Sacrilegious Atheist. I Probably Am. The Thing Jesus Really Would've Liked Would Be The Guy Who Plays The Kettle Drums In The Orchestra.

But What I Mean Is, Lots Of Time You Don’t Know What Interests You Most Till You Start Talking About Something That Doesn’t Interest You Most. I Mean You Can’t Help It Sometimes.

Girls. You Never Know What They're Going To Think.

Sentimentality Is Loving Something More Than God Does.

Loving Something

Grand. There's A Word I Really Hate. It's A Phony. I Could Puke Every Time I Hear It.

You’d Better Get Busy, Though, Buddy. The Goddam Sands Run Out On You Every Time You Turn Around. I Know What I’m Talking About. You’re Lucky If You Get Time To Sneeze In This Goddam Phenomenal World.

I'm Known As A Strange, Aloof Kind Of Man. But All I'm Doing Is Trying To Protect Myself And My Work.

You Know, I'm The Only One In This Family Who Has No Problems, . . . And You Know Why? Because Any Time I'm Feeling Blue, Or Puzzled , What I Do, I Just Invite A Few People To Come Visit Me In The Bathroom, And--well, We Iron Things Out Together, That's All.

I'm One Of The Little Foxes That Spoil The Grapes.

It's Nice When Somebody Tells You About Their Uncle. Especially When They Start Out Telling You About Their Father's Farm And Then All Of A Sudden Get More Interested In Their Uncle.

I'm Not Afraid To Compete. It's Just The Opposite. Don't You See That? I'm Afraid I Will Compete - That's What Scares Me.

I've Never Seen Such A Bunch Of Apple-eaters.

The Little Girl On The Plane Who Turned Her Doll's Head Around To Look At Me.

I Think If You Don't Really Like A Girl, You Shouldn't Horse Around With Her At All, And If You Do Like Her, Then You're Supposed To Like Her Face, And If You Like Her Face, You Ought To Be Careful About Doing Crumby Stuff To It, Like Squirting Water All Over It. It's Really Too Bad That So Much Crumby Stuff Is A Lot Of Fun Sometimes.

He Had A Theory, Walt Did, That The Religious Life, And All The Agony That Goes With It, Is Just Something God Sics On People Who Have The Gall To Accuse Him Of Having Created An Ugly World.

If You're Going To Say The Jesus Prayer, At Least Say It To Jesus, And Not To St. Francis And Seymour And Heidi's Grandfather All Wrapped Up In One.

I Don't Know About Bores. Maybe You Shouldn't Feel Too Sorry If You See Some Swell Girl Getting Married To Them. They Don't Hurt Anybody Most Of Them, And Maybe They're All Terrific Whistlers Or Something. Who The Hell Knows? Not Me.

Franny Was Staring At The Little Blotch Of Sunshine With A Special Intensity, As If She Were Considering Lying Down In It.

Are All Your Stars Shining?

Franny Has The Measles, For One Thing. Incidentally, Did You Hear Her Last Week? She Went On At Beautiful Length About How She Used To Fly All Around The Apartment When She Was Four And No One Was Home. The New Announcer Is Worse Than Grant - If Possible, Even Worse Than Sullivan In The Old Days. He Said She Surely Dreamt That She Was Able To Fly. The Baby Stood Her Ground Like An Angel. She Said She Knew She Was Able To Fly Because When She Came Down She Always Had Dust On Her Fingers From Touching The Light Bulbs.

I'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

I Suspect That Money Is A Far Greater Distraction For The Artist Than Hunger.

His Eldest Sister (who Modestly Prefers To Be Identified Here As A Tuckahoe Homemaker) Has Asked Me To Describe Him As Looking Like 'the Blue-eyed Jewish-irish Mohican Scout Who Died In Your Arms At The Roulette Table At Monte Carlo.

It's Full Of Phonies, And All You Do Is Study So That You Can Learn Enough To Be Smart Enough To Be Able To Buy A Goddam Cadillac Some Day, And You Have To Keep Making Believe You Give A Damn If The Football Team Loses, And All You Do Is Talk About Girls And Liquor And Sex All Day, And Everybody Sticks Together In These Dirty Little Goddam Cliques.

Oh, I Don’t Know. That Digression Business Got On My Nerves. I Don’t Know. The Trouble With Me Is, I Like It When Somebody Digresses. It’s More Interesting And All.

She Said She Knew She Was Able To Fly Because When She Came Down She Always Had Dust On Her Fingers From Touching The Light Bulbs.

Don't Ever Tell Anybody Anything. If You Do, You Start Missing Everybody.

If There's One Thing I Hate, It's The Movies. Don't Even Mention Them To Me.

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.

Don't You Think I Have Sense Enough To Worry About My Motives For Saying The Prayer? That's Exactly What's Bothering Me So. Just Because I'm Choosy About What I Want - In This Case, Enlightenment Or Peace, Instead Or Money Or Prestige Or Game Or Any Of Those Things, Doesn't Mean I'm Not As Egotistical And Self-seeking As Everybody Else. If Anything, I'm More So!

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

Nobody Who's Really Using His Ego, His Real Ego, Has Any Time For Any Goddam Hobbies

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

If A Body Catch A Body Coming Through The Rye.

If Death Stepped Miraculously Through The Glass And Came In After You, In All Probability You Just Got Up And Went Along With Him, Ferociously But Quietly.

I Am A Kind Of Paranoid In Reverse. I Suspect People Of Plotting To Make Me Happy.

I Knew It Wasn't Too Important, But It Made Me Sad Anyway.

There Isn't Anyone Anywhere Who Isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't You Know That? Don't You Know That Goddam Secret Yet? And Don't You Know — Listen To Me, Now — Don't You Know Who That Fat Lady Really Is? . . . Ah, Buddy. Ah, Buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, Buddy.

Life Is A Game, Boy. Life Is A Game That One Plays According To The Rules.

If I Were God, I Certainly Wouldn't Want People To Love Me Sentimentally. It's Too Unreliable.

I'd Swear To God, If I Were A Piano Player Or An Actor Or Something And All Those Dopes Thought I Was Terrific, I'd Hate It. I Wouldn't Even Want Them To Clap For Me. People Always Clap For The Wrong Things. If I Were A Piano Player, I'd Play It In The Goddam Closet.

The Room Was Not Impressively Large, Even By Manhattan Apartment-house Standards, But Its Accumulated Furnishings Might Have Lent A Snug Appearance To A Banquet Hall In Valhalla.

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.

It Happens To Be One Of Those Days When I See Everybody In The Family, Including Myself, Through The Wrong End Of A Telescope.

One Of Those Days

Some People You Shouldn't Kid, Even If They Deserve It.

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.

How Long Should A Man's Legs Be? Long Enough To Touch The Ground.

I’ll Read My Books And I’ll Drink Coffee And I’ll Listen To Music, And I’ll Bolt The Door.

I Don't Even Know What I Was Running For—i Guess I Just Felt Like It.

We Are, All Four Of Us, Blood Relatives, And We Speak A Kind Of Esoteric, Family Language, A Sort Of Semantic Geometry In Which The Shortest Distance Between Any Two Points Is A Fullish Circle.

I Felt So Lonesome, All Of A Sudden. I Almost Wished I Was Dead.

Sex Is Something I Really Don't Understand Too Hot.

She Wasn't Doing A Thing That I Could See, Except Standing There Leaning On The Balcony Railing, Holding The Universe Together.

I Feel Overwhelmingly Grateful To Them, But I Don't Know What To Do With Their Invisible Gifts.

It's No Fun To Be Yellow. Maybe I'm Not All Yellow. I Don't Know. I Think Maybe I'm Just Partly Yellow And Partly The Type That Doesn't Give Much Of A Damn If They Lose Their Gloves. One Of My Troubles Is, I Never Care Too Much When I Lose Something - It Used To Drive Mother Crazy When I Was A Kid. Some Guys Spend Days Looking For Something They've Lost. I Never Seem To Have Anything That If I Lost It I'd Care Too Much. Maybe That's Why I'm Partly Yellow. It's No Excuse, Though. It Really Isn't. What You Should Be Is Not Yellow At All.

I'm The Most Terrific Liar You Ever Saw In Your Life.

Do You Know What I Was Smiling At? You Wrote Down That You Were A Writer By Profession. It Sounded To Me Like The Loveliest Euphemism I Had Ever Heard. When Was Writing Ever Your Profession? It's Never Been Anything But Your Religion.

The Catcher In The Rye... That's All I Really Want To Be.

One Day A Long Time From Now You'll Cease To Care Anymore Whom You Please Or What Anybody Has To Say About You. That's When You'll Finally Produce The Work You're Capable Of.

Don't Hate Me Because I Can't Remember Some Person Immediately. Especially When They Look Like Everybody Else, And Talk And Dress And Act Like Everybody Else.

Sleep Tight, Ya Morons!

People Are Mostly Hot To Have A Discussion When You're Not.

But I Was Afraid Of The Questions (much More Than The Accusations) You Might Both Put To Me.

They Love Their Reasons For Loving Us Almost As Much As They Love Us, And Most Of The Time More. It's Not So Good, That Way.

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.

God, How I Still Love Private Readers. It’s What We All Used To Be.

She Was Terrific To Hold Hands With. Most Girls If You Hold Hands With Them, Their Goddam Hand Dies On You, Or Else They Think They Have To Keep Moving Their Hand All The Time, As If They Were Afraid They'd Bore You Or Something. Jane Was Different. We'd Get Into A Goddam Movie Or Something, And Right Away We'd Start Holding Hands, And We Wouldn't Quit Till The Movie Was Over. And Without Changing The Position Or Making A Big Deal Out Of It. You Never Even Worried, With Jane, Whether Your Hand Was Sweaty Or Not. All You Knew Was, You Were Happy. You Really Were.

It's Funny. All You Have To Do Is Say Something Nobody Understands And They'll Do Practically Anything You Want Them To.

Holden Caulfield

Some Of My Best Friedns Are Children. In Fact, All Of My Best Friends Are Children.

I Mean It's Very Hard To Meditate And Live A Spiritual Life In America. People Think You're A Freak If You Try To.

She Wrote To Him Fairly Regularly, From A Paradise Of Triple Exclamation Points And Inaccurate Observations.

Exclamation Points

If I'd Wanted This Place To Fill Up With Every Fat Irish Rose That Passes By, I'd've Said So.

If You Have Something To Offer, Someone Will Learn Something From You. It's A Beautiful Reciprocal Arrangement. And It Isn't Education. It's History. It's Poetry.

Always, Always, Always Referring Every Goddam Thing That Happens Right Back To Our Lousy Little Egos.

I Used To Think She Was Quite Intelligent , In My Stupidity. The Reason I Did Was Because She Knew Quite A Lot About The Theater And Plays And Literature And All That Stuff. If Somebody Knows Quite A Lot About All Those Things, It Takes You Quite A While To Find Out Whether They're Really Stupid Or Not.

Liberate Yourself From My Vice-like Grip!

I Don't Exactly Know What I Mean By That, But I Mean It.

I'm Sick Of Not Having The Courage To Be An Absolute Nobody.

It's Partly True, Too, But It Isn't All True. People Always Think Something's All True.

But Doctors Talk About Cells As If They Had Such Unlimited Importance All By Themselves. As If They Didn't Really Belong To The Person That Has Them." Teddy Brushed Back His Hair From His Forehead With One Hand. "i Grew My Own Body," He Said. "nobody Else Did It For Me. So If I Grew It, I Must Have Known How To Grow It. Unconsciously, At Least. I May Have Lost The Conscious Knowledge Of How To Grow It Sometime In The Last Few Hundred Thousand Years, But The Knowledge Is Still There, Because—obviously—i've Used It.

An Artist's Only Concern Is To Shoot For Some Kind Of Perfection, And On His Own Terms, Not Anyone Else's.

If You're Not In The Mood, You Can't Do That Stuff Right.

The Rest, With Very Little Exaggeration, Was Books. Meant-to-be-picked-up Books. Permanently-left-behind Books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with Books. But Books, Books. Tall Cases Lined Three Walls Of The Room, Filled To And Beyond Capacity. The Overflow Had Been Piled In Stacks On The Floor. There Was Little Space Left For Walking, And None Whatever For Pacing.

Exaggeration Is

There's A Marvelous Peace In Not Publishing, There's A Stillness. When You Publish, The World Thinks You Owe Something. If You Don't Publish, They Don't Know What You're Doing. You Can Keep It For Yourself.

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.

Her Joke Of A Name Aside, Her General Unprettiness Aside, She Was, In Terms Of Permanently Memorable, Immoderately Perceptive, Small-area Faces, A Stunning And Final Girl.

The Sentence Im Reading Is Terrific.

But It Wasn't Just That He Was The Most Intelligent Member In The Family. He Was Also The Nicest, In Lots Of Ways. He Never Got Mad At Anybody. People With Red Hair Are Supposed To Get Mad Very Easily, But Allie Never Did, And He Had Very Red Hair.

But Where Does By Far The Bulk, The Whole Ambulance Load, Of Pain Really Come From? Where Must It Come From? Isn't The True Poet Or Painter A Seer? Isn't He, Actually, The Only Seer We Have On Earth? Most Apparently Not The Scientist, Most Emphatically Not The Psychiatrist.

Pencey Was Full Of Crooks. Quite A Few Guys Came From These Wealthy Families, But It Was Full Of Crooks Anyway. The More Expensive A School Is, The More Crooks It Has - I'm Not Kidding.

I Was Trying To Feel Some Kind Of Good-bye. I Mean I’ve Left Schools And Places I Didn’t Even Know I Was Leaving Them. I Hate That. I Don’t Care If It’s A Sad Good-bye Or A Bad Good-bye, But When I Leave A Place I Like To Know I’m Leaving It. If You Don’t You Feel Even Worse.

I Have So Much I Want To Tell You, And Nowhere To Begin.

I Prayed For The City To Be Cleared Of People, For The Gift Of Being Alone—a-l-o-n-e: Which Is The One New York Prayer That Rarely Gets Lost Or Delayed In Channels, And In No Time At All Everything I Touched Turned To Solid Loneliness.

She Was Wearing A Canary-yellow Two-piece Bathing Suit, One Piece Of Which She Would Not Actually Be Needing For Another Nine Or Ten Years.

There Isn’t A Nightclub In The World That You Can Sit In For A Long Time Unless You Can At Least Buy Some Liquor And Get Drunk. Or Unless You’re With Some Girl That Really Knocks You Out.

You Don't Have To Think Too Hard When You Talk To Teachers.

That's The Terrible Part. I Swear To God I'm A Madman.

I Thought The Two Ugly Ones Were Sisters, But They Got Very Insulted When I Asked Them. You Could Tell Neither One Of Them Wanted To Look Like The Other One, And You Couldn't Blame Them, But It Was Very Amusing Anyway.

Lane Himself Lit A Cigarette As The Train Pulled In. Then, Like So Many People, Who, Perhaps, Ought To Be Issued Only A Very Probational Pass To Meet Trains, He Tried To Empty His Face Of All Expression That Might Quite Simply, Perhaps Even Beautifully, Reveal How He Felt About The Arriving Person. Franny Was Among The First Of The Girls To Get Off The Train, From A Car At The Far, Northern End Of The Platform. Lane Spotted Her Immediately, And Despite Whatever It Was He Was Trying To Do With His Face, His Arm That Shot Up Into The Air Was The Whole Truth.

It's One Of Those Places That Are Supposed To Be Very Sophisticated And All, And The Phonies Are Coming In The Window.

Ask Her If She Still Keeps All Her Kings In The Back Row.

Something Else An Academic Education Will Do For You. If You Go Along With It Any Considerable Distance, It Will Begin To Give You An Idea What Size Mind You Have. What’ll Fit And, Maybe, What It Won’t. After A While, You’ll Have An Idea What Kind Of Thoughts Your Mind Should Be Wearing. For One Thing, It May Save You An Extraordinary Amount Of Time Trying On Ideas That Won’t Suit You, Aren’t Becoming To You. You’ll Begin To Know Your True Measurements And Dress Your Mind Accordingly.

For A Psychoanalyst To Be Any Good... He'd Have To Believe That It Was Through The Grace Of God That He'd Been Inspired To Study Psychoanalysis In The First Place.

But Guilt Is Guilt. It Doesn't Go Away. It Can't Be Nullified. It Can't Even Be Fully Understood, I'm Certain - It's Roots Run Too Deep Into Private And Long-standing Karma. About The Only Thing That Saves My Neck When I Get To Feeling This Way Is That Guilt Is An Imperfect Form Of Knowledge. Just Because It Isn't Perfect Doesn't Mean That It Can't Be Used. The Hard Thing To Do Is To Put It To Practical Use, Before It Gets Around To Paralyzing You.

I Kept Picturing All These Little Kids In This Big Field Of Rye... If They're Running And They Don't Look Where They're Going, I Have To Come Out From Somewhere And Catch Them.

I Held Hands With Her All The Time...that Doesn't Sound Like Much, I Realize, But She Was Terrific To Hold Hands With. Most Girls If You Hold Hands With Them, Their Goddam Hand Dies On You, Or Else They Think They Have To Keep Moving Their Hand All The Time, As If They Were Afraid They'd Bore You Or Something.

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally. They're Always Sticking Their Emotions In Things That Have No Emotions.

Seymour Once Said That All We Do Our Whole Lives Is Go From One Little Piece Of Holy Ground To The Next.

Don't Tell People What You Are Thinking, Or You Will Miss Them Terribly When You Are Away.

It's Really Too Bad That So Much Crumby Stuff Is A Lot Of Fun Sometimes.

It Was A Very Stupid Thing To Do, I'll Admit, But I Hardly Didn't Even Know I Was Doing It.

Boy, Did He Depress Me! I Don't Mean He Was A Bad Guy- He Wasn't. But You Don't Have To Be Bad Guy To Depress Somebody- You Can Be A Good Guy And Do It.

You're Lucky If You Get Time To Sneeze In This Goddam Phenomenal World.

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

Listen, If You're Not Going To Be A Nun Or Something, You Might As Well Laugh.

You Don't Know How To Talk To People You Don't Like. Don't Love, Really. You Can't Live In The World With Such Strong Likes And Dislikes.

Likes And Dislikes

It’s History. It’s Poetry.

I Was Sixteen Then, And I'm Seventeen Now, And Sometimes I Act Like I'm About Thirteen. Sometimes, I Act A Lot Older Than I Am--i Really Do. But People Never Notice It. People Never Notice Anything.

We’re Freaks, That’s All. Those Two Bastards Got Us Nice And Early And Made Us Into Freaks With Freakish Standards, That’s All. We’re The Tattooed Lady, And We’re Never Going To Have A Minute’s Peace, The Rest Of Our Lives, Until Everybody Else Is Tattooed, Too.

Why's It So Sunny?" She Repeated. Zooey Observed Her Rather Narrowly. "i Bring The Sun Wherever I Go, Buddy," He Said.

I Was Six When I Saw That Everything Was God, And My Hair Stood Up, And All, Teddy Said. It Was On A Sunday, I Remember. My Sister Was A Tiny Child Then, And She Was Drinking Her Milk, And All Of A Sudden I Saw That She Was God And The Milk Was God. I Mean, All She Was Doing Was Pouring God Into God, If You Know What I Mean.

I Thought What I'd Do Was I'd Pretend I Was One Of Those Deaf-mutes.

She's Quite Skinny, Like Me, But Nice Skinny. Roller-skate Skinny. I Watched Her Once From The Window When She Was Crossing Over Fifth Avenue To Go To The Park, And That's What She Is, Roller-skate Skinny. You'd Like Her.

Were Most Of Your Stars Out? Were You Busy Writing Your Heart Out?

There Are Nice Things In The World - And I Mean Nice Things. We're All Such Morons To Get So Sidetracked.

They Didn't Act Like People And They Didn't Act Like Actors. It's Hard To Explain. They Acted More Like They Knew They Were Celebrities And All. I Mean They Were Good, But They Were Too Good.

This Fall I Think You're Riding For—it's A Special Kind Of Fall, A Horrible Kind. The Man Falling Isn't Permitted To Feel Or Hear Himself Hit Bottom. He Just Keeps Falling And Falling. The Whole Arrangement's Designed For Men Who, At Some Time Or Other In Their Lives, Were Looking For Something Their Own Environment Couldn't Supply Them With. Or They Thought Their Own Environment Couldn't Supply Them With. So They Gave Up Looking. They Gave It Up Before They Ever Really Even Got Started.

She Was A Girl Who For A Ringing Phone Dropped Exactly Nothing. She Looked As If Her Phone Had Been Ringing Continually Ever Since She Had Reached Puberty.

The Existence Of God, The Why Of Life, Was All That Really Only A Question Of Glands?

Existence Of God

If You Sat Around There Long Enough And Heard All The Phonies Applauding And All, You Got To Hate Everybody In The World, I Swear You Did.

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.

I'm Sick Of Just Liking People. I Wish To God I Could Meet Somebody I Could Respect.

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

Its Really Hard To Be Roommates With People If Your Suitcases Are Much Better Than Theirs.

We Don't Talk, We Hold Forth. We Don't Converse, We Expound.

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.

Do It For The Fat Lady!

Happiness Is A Solid And Joy Is A Liquid.

But You Can't Always Tell - With Somebody's Mother, I Mean. Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

If Only You’d Remember Before Ever You Sit Down To Write That You’ve Been A Reader Long Before You Were Ever A Writer. You Simply Fix That Fact In Your Mind, Then Sit Very Still And Ask Yourself, As A Reader, What Piece Of Writing In All The World Buddy Glass Would Most Want To Read If He Had His Heart’s Choice. The Next Step Is Terrible, But So Simple I Can Hardly Believe It As I Write It. You Just Sit Down Shamelessly And Write The Thing Yourself. I Won’t Even Underline That. It’s Too Important To Be Underlined.

God, I Wish You Could Have Been There.

Could Have Been

I Don't Really Deeply Feel That Anyone Needs An Airtight Reason For Quoting From The Works Of Writers He Loves, But It's Always Nice, I'll Grant You, If He Has One.

In The First Place, You’re Way Off When You Start Railing At Things And People Instead Of At Yourself.

It Was Just Terrible! And The Worst Part Was, I Knew What A Bore I Was Being, I Knew How I Was Depressing People, Or Even Hurting Their Feelings- But I Just Couldn't Stop! I Just Could Not Stop Picking!

Boy, 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?

You Never Even Worried, With Jane, Whether Your Hand Was Sweaty Or Not. All You Knew Was, You Were Happy. You Really Were.

Sometimes You Get Tired Of Riding In Taxicabs The Same Way You Get Tired Riding In Elevators. All Of A Sudden, You Have To Walk, No Matter How Far Or How High Up.

Get Your Dirty Stinking Moron Knees Off My Chest.

Why Are You Breaking Down, Incidentally? I Mean If You’re Able To Go Into A Collapse With All Your Might, Why Can’t You Use The Same Energy To Stay Well And Busy?

I Don't Even Like Old Cars. I'd Rather Have A Goddam Horse. A Horse Is At Least Human, For God's Sake.

If Sentiment Doesn't Ultimately Make Fibbers Of Some People, Their Natural Abominable Memories Almost Certainly Will.

But If We Come Back, If German Men Come Back, If British Men Come Back, And Japs, And French, And All The Other Men, All Of Us Talking, Writing, Painting, Making Movies Of Heroes, And Cockroaches And Foxholes And Blood, Then Future Generations Will Always Be Doomed To Future Hitlers. It's Never Occurred To Boys To Have Contempt For Wars, To Point To Soldiers' Pictures In History Books, Laughing At Them. If German Boys Had Learned To Be Contemptuous Of Violence, Hitler Would Have Had To Take Up Knitting To Keep His Ego Warm.

If You're A Poet, You Do Something Beautiful. I Mean, You're Supposed To Leave Something Beautiful After You Get Off The Page And Everything. The Ones You're Talking About Don't Leave A Single, Solitary Thing Beautiful. All That Maybe The Slightly Better Ones Do Is Sort Of Get Inside Your Head And Leave Something There, But Just Because They Do, Just Because They Know How To Leave Something, It Doesn't Have To Be A Poem For Heaven's Sake. It May Just Be Some Kind Of Terribly Fascinating, Syntaxy Droppings--excuse The Expression. Like Manlius And Esposito And All Those Poor Men.

You Think Of The Book You'd Most Like To Be Reading, And Then You Sit Down And Shamelessly Write It.

Sensitive. That Killed Me. That Guy Morrow Was About As Sensitive As A Toilet Seat.

I Mean They Don't Seem Able To Love Us Just The Way We Are. They Don't Seem Able To Love Us Unless They Can Keep Changing Us A Little Bit. They Love Their Reasons For Loving Us Almost As Much As They Love Us, And Most Of The Time More.

I Like It When Somebody Gets Excited About Something. It's Nice.

Holden Caulfield

I Have Scars On My Hands From Touching Certain People…certain Heads, Certain Colours And Textures Of Human Hair Leave Permanent Marks On Me.

Give Me A Story That Just Makes Me Unreasonably Vigilant. Keep Me Up Till Five Only Because All Your Stars Are Out, And For No Other Reason.

If You Weren't Around, I'd Probably Be Someplace Way The Hell Off. In The Woods Or Some Goddamn Place. You're The Only Reason I'm Around, Practically.

I Live In New York, And I Was Thinking About The Lagoon In Central Park, Down Near Central Park South. I Was Wondering If It Would Be Frozen Over When I Got Home, And If It Was, Where Did The Ducks Go? I Was Wondering Where The Ducks Went When The Lagoon Got All Icy And Frozen Over. I Wondered If Some Guy Came In A Truck And Took Them Away To A Zoo Or Something. Or If They Just Flew Away.

It's So Silly. All You Do Is Get The Heck Out Of Your Body When You Die. My Gosh, Everybody's Done It Thousands Of Times. Just Because They Don't Remember, It Doesn't Mean They Haven't Done It.

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.

People Never Think Anything Is Anything Really. I'm Getting Goddam Sick Of It.

I Asked Him What, If Anything, Got Him Down About Teaching. He Said He Didn't Think That Anything About It Got Him Exactly Down, But There Was One Thing, He Thought, That Frightened Him: Reading The Pencilled Notations In The Margins Of Books In The College Library.

How That Name Comes Up. Mixing Memory And Desire

The Great Gatsby' [...] Was My 'tom Sawyer' When I Was Twelve [....]

I’m Not Going To Bed After All. Somebody Around Here Hath Murdered Sleep. Good For Him.

He Said I Was Unequipped To Meet Life Because I Had No Sense Of Humor.

The Color Of His Pallor, However, Was A Curiously Basic White - Unmixed, That Is, With The Greens And Yellows Of Guilt Or Abject Contrition. It Was Very Like The Standard Bloodlessness In The Face Of A Small Boy Who Loves Animals To Distraction, All Animals, And Who Has Just Seen His Favourite, Bunny-loving Sister's Expression As She Opened The Box Containing His Birthday Present To Her - A Freshly Caught Young Cobra, With A Red Ribbon Tied In An Awkward Bow Around Its Neck.

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.

The Connection Was So Bad, And I Couldn’t Talk At All During Most Of The Call. How Terrible It Is When You Say I Love You And The Person At The Other End Shouts Back ‘what?

But Don't Tell Me I'm Not Sensitive To Beauty. That's My Achilles' Heel, And Don't You Forget It. To Me, Everything Is Beautiful. Show Me A Pink Sunset And I'm Limp, By God.

Almost Every Time Somebody Gives Me A Present, It Ends Up Making Me Sad.

It Is My Rather Subversive Opinion That A Writer's Feelings Of Anonymity-obscurity Are The Second Most Valuable Property On Loan To Him During His Working Years.

I Drew Laughing, High-breasted Girls Aquaplaning Without A Care In The World, As A Result Of Being Amply Protected Against Such National Evils As Bleeding Gums, Facial Blemishes, Unsightly Hairs, And Faulty Or Inadequate Life Insurance. I Drew Housewives Who, Until They Reached For The Right Soap Flakes, Laid Themselves Wide Open To Straggly Hair, Poor Posture, Unruly Children, Disaffected Husbands, Rough (but Slender) Hands, Untidy (but Enormous) Kitchens.

Maybe There's A Trapdoor Under My Chair, And I'll Just Disappear.

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.

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.

I Mean Most Girls Are So Dumb And All. After You Neck Them For A While, You Can Really Watch Them Losing Their Brains. You Take A Girl When She Really Gets Passionate, She Just Hasn't Any Brains. -holden Caulfield

People Never Notice Anything.

Sometimes I See Me Dead In The Rain.

I Don't Suppose A Writing Man Ever Really Gets Rid Of His Old Crocus-yellow Neckties. Sooner Or Later, I Think, They Show Up In His Prose, And There Isn't A Hell Of A Lot He Can Do About It.

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

It Was The Last Game Of The Year And You Were Supposed To Commit Suicide Or Something If Old Pencey Didn't Win.

You Can't Argue With Someone Who Believes, Or Just Passionately Suspects, That The Poet's Function Is Not To Write What He Must Write But, Rather, To Write What He Would Write If His Life Depended On His Taking Responsibility For Writing What He Must In A Style Designed To Shut Out As Few Of His Old Librarians As Humanly Possible.

That's The Whole Trouble. When You're Feeling Very Depressed, You Can't Even Think.

I Don't Hate Too Many Guys. What I May Do, I May Hate Them For A Little While, Like This Guy Stradlater I Knew At Pencey, And This Other Boy, Robert Ackley. I Hate Them Once In A While—i Admit It—but It Doesn't Last Too Long, Is What I Mean. After A While, If I Didn't See Them, If They Didn't Come In The Room, Or If I Didn't See Them In The Dining Room For A Couple Of Meals, I Sort Of Missed Them. I Mean I Sort Of Missed Them.

How Old Are You? I Asked Her. "old Enough To Know Better." She Said.

Sex Is Something I Really Don't Understand Too Hot. You Never Know Where The Hell You Are. I Keep Making Up These Sex Rules For Myself, And Then I Break Them Right Away. Last Year I Made A Rule That I Was Going To Quit Horsing Around With Girls That, Deep Down, Gave Me A Pain In The Ass. I Broke It, Though, The Same Week I Made It - The Same Night, As A Matter Of Fact.

Among Other Things, You'll Find That You're Not The First Person Who Was Ever Confused And Frightened And Even Sickened By Human Behavior. You're By No Means Alone On That Score, You'll Be Excited And Stimulated To Know. Many, Many Men Have Been Just As Troubled Morally And Spiritually As You Are Right Now. Happily, Some Of Them Kept Records Of Their Troubles. You'll Learn From Them—if You Want To. Just As Someday, If You Have Something To Offer, Someone Will Learn Something From You. It's A Beautiful Reciprocal Arrangement. And It Isn't Education. It's History. It's Poetry.

A Confessional Passage Has Probably Never Been Written That Didn't Stink A Little Bit Of The Writer's Pride In Having Given Up His Pride.

Sex Is Something I Really Don't Understand Too Hot. You Never Know Where The Hell You Are... Sex Is Something I Just Don't Understand. I Swear To God.

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Agatha Christie

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