Background Image

...

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.

-J. D. Salinger

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

But Guilt Is Guilt.

J. D. Salinger

...

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.

Views: 4

Topic

More From J. D. Salinger

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.

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.

I'm Aware That Many Of My Friends Will Be Saddened And Shocked, Or Shock-saddened, Over Some Of The Chapters In 'the Catcher In The Rye.' Some Of My Best Friends Are Children. In Fact, All My Best Friends Are Children. It's Almost Unbearable For Me To Realize That My Book Will Be Kept On A Shelf Out Of Their Reach.

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.

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

I Just Hope That One Day - Preferably When We’re Both Blind Drunk - We Can Talk About It.

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.

There Are Still A Few Men Who Love Desperately.

It Was That Kind Of A Crazy Afternoon, Terrifically Cold, And No Sun Out Or Anything, And You Felt Like You Were Disappearing Every Time You Crossed A Road.

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

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.

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.

People Always Clap For The Wrong Reasons.

Rewards And Recognition

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

Make Sure You Marry Someone Who Laughs At The Same Things You Do.

And The Old Horror Of Being A Professional Writer, And The Usual Stench Of Words That Goes With It, Is Begining To Drive Me Out Of My Seat. (buddy)

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

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

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.

I Love You To Pieces, Distraction, Etc.

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.

What I Really Felt Like, Though, Was Committing Suicide. I Felt Like Jumping Out The Window. I Probably Would've Done It, Too, If I'd Been Sure Somebody'd Cover Me Up As Soon As I Landed. I Didn't Want A Bunch Of Stupid Rubbernecks Looking At Me When I Was All Gory.

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

The Cards Are Stacked (quite Properly, I Imagine) Against All Professional Aesthetes, And No Doubt We All Deserve The Dark, Wordy, Academic Deaths We All Sooner Or Later Die.

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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

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.

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. I Know It's Crazy.

Your Heart, Bessie, Is An Autumn Garage.

If A Girl Looks Swell When She Meets You, Who Gives A Damn If She's Late? Nobody.

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.

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

Who In The Bible Besides Jesus Knew--knew--that We're Carrying The Kingdom Of Heaven Around With Us, Inside, Where We're All Too Goddam Stupid And Sentimental And Unimaginative To Look?

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

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.

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

I'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

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.

I Have A Feeling That You're Riding For Some Kind Of A Terrible, Terrible Fall. But I Don't Honestly Know What Kind.... It May Be The Kind Where, At The Age Of Thirty, You Sit In Some Bar Hating Everybody Who Comes In Looking As If He Might Have Played Football In College. Then Again, You May Pick Up Just Enough Education To Hate People Who Say, 'it's A Secret Between He And I.' Or You May End Up In Some Business Office, Throwing Paper Clips At The Nearest Stenographer. I Just Don't Know.

How That Name Comes Up. Mixing Memory And Desire

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

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.

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

That's The Whole Trouble. You Can't Ever Find A Place That's Nice And Peaceful, Because There Isn't Any.

People Never Notice Anything.

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.

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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 You Do Something Too Good, Then, After A While, If You Don't Watch It, You Start Showing Off. And Then You're Not As Good Any More.

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

It’s History. It’s Poetry.

If A Body Catch A Body Coming Through The Rye.

In My Mind, I'm Probably The Biggest Sex Maniac You Ever Saw.

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

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. That's Why I Quit The Theatre Department. Just Because I'm So Horribly Conditioned To Accept Everybody Else's Values, And Just Because I Like Applause And People To Rave About Me, Doesn't Make It Right. I'm Ashamed Of It. I'm Sick Of It. I'm Sick Of Not Having The Courage To Be An Absolute Nobody. I'm Sick Of Myself And Everybody Else That Wants To Make Some Kind Of A Splash.

If You Can't, Or Won't, Think Of Seymour, Then You Go Right Ahead And Call In Some Ignorant Psychoanalyst. You Just Do That. You Just Call In Some Analyst Who's Experienced In Adjusting People To The Joys Of Television, And Life Magazine Every Wednesday, And European Travel, And The H-bomb, And Presidential Elections, And The Front Page Of The Times, And God Knows What Else That's Gloriously Normal.

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

And I Can't Be Running Back And Fourth Forever Between Grief And High Delight.

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?

I Can Be Quite Sarcastic When I'm In The Mood.

Sometimes I See Me Dead In The Rain.

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

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.

Probably For Every Man There Is At Least One City That Sooner Or Later Turns Into A Girl. How Well Or How Badly The Man Actually Knew The Girl Doesn’t Necessarily Affect The Transformation. She Was There, And She Was The Whole City, And That’s That

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

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

I'm Quite Illiterate, But I Read A Lot.

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.

I Wouldn't Exactly Describe Her As Strictly Beautiful. She Knocked Me Out, Though.

This Is A People Shooting Hat," I Said. "i Shoot People In This Hat.

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.

I Just Never Felt So Fantastically Rocky In My Entire Life.

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.

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.

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

The Worst Thing That Being An Artist Could Do To You Would Be That It Would Make You Slightly Unhappy Constantly.

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.

The Sentence Im Reading Is Terrific.

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.

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.

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

If You Really Want To Hear About It, The First Thing You'll Probably Want To Know Is Where I Was Born, And What My Lousy Childhood Was Like, And How My Parents Were Occupied And All Before They Had Me, And All That David Copperfield Kind Of Crap, But I Don't Feel Like Going Into It, If You Want To Know The Truth.

Then The Carousel Started, And I Watched Her Go Round And Round...all The Kids Tried To Grap For The Gold Ring, And So Was Old Phoebe, And I Was Sort Of Afraid She's Fall Off The Goddam Horse, But I Didn't Say Or Do Anything. The Thing With Kids Is, If They Want To Grab For The Gold Ring, You Have To Let Them Do It, And Not Say Anything. If They Fall Off, They Fall Off, But It Is Bad To Say Anything To Them.

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

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 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.

I Was Surrounded By Jerks. I'm Not Kidding.

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.

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

The Goddam Movies. They Can Ruin You. I'm Not Kidding

Did You Ever Get Fed Up?' I Said. 'i Mean Did You Ever Get Scared That Everything Was Going To Go Lousy Unless You Did Something?

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

Then I’d Throw My Automatic Down The Elevator Shaft-after I’d Wiped Off All The Fingerprints And All. Then I’d Crawl Back Up To My Room And Call Up Jane And Have Her Come Over And Bandage Up My Guts. I Pictured Her Holding A Cigarette For Me To Smoke While I Was Bleeding And All. The Goddam Movies. They Can Ruin You. I’m Not Kidding.

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

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.

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.

However Contradictory The Coroner's Report — Whether He Pronounces Consumption Or Loneliness Or Suicide To Be The Cause Of Death — Isn't It Plain How The True Artist-seer Actually Dies? I Say That The True Artist-seer, The Heavenly Fool Who Can And Does Produce Beauty, Is Mainly Dazzled To Death By His Own Scruples, The Blinding Shapes And Colors Of His Own Sacred Human Conscience.

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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.

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.

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

If There Is An Amateur Reader Still Left In The World - Or Anybody Who Just Reads And Runs - I Ask Him Or Her, With Untellable Affection And Gratitude, To Split The Dedication Of This Book Four Ways With My Wife And Children.

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.

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.

It Always Smelled Like It Was Raining Outside, Even If It Wasn't, And You Were In The Only Nice, Dry, Cosy Place In The World.

He Was One Of Those Guys That Think They're Being A Pansy If They Don't Break Around Forty Of Your Fingers When They Shake Hands With You. God I Hate That Stuff.

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

He Seemed Unaware Of The Messiness Of The Arrangement.

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

Money Always Ends Up Making You Blue.

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!

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

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

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!

Words Of Wisdom

In Every School I've Gone To, All The Athletic Bastards Stick Together.

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.

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

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

There Is A Marvelous Peace In Not Publishing ... I Like To Write. I Love To Write. But I Write Just For Myself And My Own Pleasure.

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

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.

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

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

... Even The Most Sublimely Accomplished Non-stop Talker Can't Consistently Please.

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

Take Most People, They Are Crazy About Cars. They Worry If They Get A Little Scratch On Them, They Are Always Talking About Have Many Miles They Get To A Gallon, And If They Get A Brand New Car Already They Start Thinking About Trading It In For One That Is Even Newer. I Do Not Even Like Old Cars. . . . I'd Rather Have A Horse. A Horse Is At Least Human, For God's Sake.

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

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

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

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.

She Really Started To Cry, And The Next Thing I Knew, I Was Kissing Her All Over - Anywhere - Her Eyes, Her Nose, Her Forehead, Her Eyebrows, And All, Her Ears - Her Whole Face Except Her Mouth And All.

Marriage Partners Are To Serve Each Other. Elevate, Help, Teach, Strengthen Each Other, But Above All, Serve. Raise Their Children Honorably, Lovingly And With Detachment. A Child Is A Guest In The House, To Be Loved And Respected - Never Possessed, Since He Belongs To God. How Wonderful, How Sane, How Beautifully Difficult, And Therefore True. The Joy Of Responsibility For The First Time In My Life.

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.

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.

You Can't Exist In This World With Such Strong Likes And Dislikes.

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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

I Think That One Of These Days," He Said, "you're Going To Have To Find Out Where You Want To Go. And Then You've Got To Start Going There. But Immediately. You Can't Afford To Lose A Minute. Not You.

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.

I Live Alone (but Catless, I'd Like Everybody To Know).

This Is God's Universe, Buddy, Not Yours, And He Has The Final Say About What's Ego And What Isn't.

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.

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

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

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.

He Was The Tallest, Thinnest, Weariest Boy I Had Ever Seen In My Life. He Was Brilliant. He Had Gorgeous Brown Eyes, And He Had Only Two Suits. He Was Completely Unhappy, And I Didn't Know Why.

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!

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.

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 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.

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.

For Joy, Apparently, It Was All Franny Could Do To Hold The Phone, Even With Both Hands.

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.

Where Do The Ducks Go In The Winter?

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.

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.

Among Other Things, You'll Find That You're Not The First One Who Was Ever Confused And Frightened And Even Sickened By Human Behavior.

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

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

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

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

John Keats / John Keats / John / Please Put Your Scarf On.

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.

As Nearly As Possible In The Spirit Of Matthew Salinger, Age One, Urging A Luncheon Companion To Accept A Cool Lima Bean, I Urge My Editor, Mentor And (heaven Help Him) Closest Friend, William Shawn, Genius Domus Of The New Yorker, Lover Of The Long Shot, Protector Of The Unprolific, Defender Of The Hopelessly Flamboyant, Most Unreasonably Modest Of Born Great Artist-editors To Accept This Pretty Skimpy-looking Book.

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

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

I'd Never Yell, "good Luck!" At Anybody. It Sounds Terrible, When You Think About It.

She Worries Over The Way Her Love For Me Comes And Goes, Appears And Disappears. She Doubts Its Reality Simply Because It Isn't As Steadily Pleasurable As A Kitten. God Knows It Is Sad. The Human Voice Conspires To Desecrate Everything On Earth.

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

Oh, This Happiness Is Strong Stuff.

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

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.

I Hate Actors. They Never Act Like People. They Just Think They Do

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

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

Against My Better Judgment I Feel Certain That Somewhere Very Near Here—the First House Down The Road, Maybe—there's A Good Poet Dying, But Also Somewhere Very Near Here Somebody's Having A Hilarious Pint Of Pus Taken From Her Lovely Young Body, And I Can't Be Running Back And Forth Forever Between Grief And High Delight.

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.

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.

There Isn't Anyone Out There Who Isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.

You Don't Always Have To Get Too Sexy To Get To Know A Girl.

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

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

His Icebergs Are Strange Monuments With A Symbol Embodied In Their Form And Their Colours. They Do Not Freeze You When You Look At Them, For They Are Not Of Ice, They Are What Lawren Harris Feels And Thinks After He Has Contemplated Them

She Was There, And She Was The Whole City, And That’s That.

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.

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

If Somebody At Least Listens It Not Too Bad

Tilting His Head Back He Slowly Released An Enormous Quantity Of Smoke From His Mouth And Drew It Up Through His Nostrils. He Continued To Smoke In This "french-inhale" Style. Very Probably, It Was Not Part Of The Sofa Vaudeville Of A Showoff But, Rather, The Private, Exposed Achievement Of A Young Man Who, At One Time Or Another, Might Have Tried Shaving Himself Left-handed.

Enormous Quantities

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.

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.

Just Go To Bed, Now. Quickly. Quickly And Slowly.

Trending Author

Category