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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.

-J. D. Salinger

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Franny Has The Measles,

J. D. Salinger

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Have Scars On My Hands From Touching Certain People...certain Heads, Certain Colours And Textures Of Human Hair Leave Permanent Marks On Me. Other Things, Too. Charlotte Once Ran Away From Me, Outside The Studio, And I Grabbed Her Dress To Stop Her, To Keep Her Near Me. A Yellow Cotton Dress I Loved Because It Was Too Long For Her. I Still Have A Lemon-yellow Mark On The Palm Of My Right Hand. Oh God, If I'm Anything By A Clinical Name, I'm A Kind Of Paranoiac In Reverse. I Suspect People Of Plotting To Make Me Happy.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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 Do You Know You're Going To Do Something, Untill You Do It?

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

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Hell Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

Inability To Love

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's Bad If You Say Anything.

Women Kill Me. They Really Do. I Don't Mean I'm Oversexed Or Anything Like That—although I Am Quite Sexy. I Just Like Them, I Mean. They're Always Leaving Their Goddam Bags Out In The Middle Of The Aisle.

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.

Let's Just Try To Have A Marvelous Time This Weekend. I Mean Not Try To Analyze Everything To Death For Once, If Possible. Especially Me. I Love You.

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

Then Again You May Pick Up Just Enough Education To Hate People Who Say, 'it's A Secret Between He And I.'

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

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

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

Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

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

Holden Caulfield

Money Always Ends Up Making You Blue.

It's Not Too Bad When The Sun's Out, But The Sun Only Comes Out When It Feels Like Coming Out.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I'm Beginning To Feel That No Author Has The Right To Tear His Characters Apart If He Doesn't Know How, Or Feel That He Knows How (poor Sucker) To Put Them Together Again. I'm Tired—my God, So Tired—of Leaving Them All Broken On The Page With Just 'the End' Written Underneath.

People Always Clap For The Wrong Reasons.

Rewards And Recognition

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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.

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

I Could Happily Lie Down And Die Sometimes.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

If Somebody At Least Listens It Not Too Bad

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

I Know He's Dead! Don't You Think I Know That? I Can Still Like Him, Though, Can't I? Just Because Somebody's Dead, You Don't Just Stop Liking Them, For God's Sake--especially If They Were About A Thousand Times Nicer Than The People You Know That're Alive And All.

You Can Hit My Father Over The Head With A Chair And He Won't Wake Up, But My Mother, All You Have To Do To My Mother Is Cough Somewhere In Siberia And She'll Hear You.

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 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.

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

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

God, I Wish You Could Have Been There.

Could Have Been

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.

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.

I Submit That Zooey's Face Was Close To Being A Wholly Beautiful Face. As Such, It Was Of Course Vulnerable To The Same Variety Of Glibly Undaunted And Usually Specious Evaluations That Any Legitimate Art Object Is. I Think It Just Remains To Be Said That Any One Of A Hundred Everyday Menaces — A Car Accident, A Head Cold, A Lie Before Breakfast — Could Have Disfigured Or Coarsened His Bounteous Good Looks In A Day Or A Second.

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

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.

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.

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

Existence Of God

The World Is Full Of Actors Pretending To Be Human

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.

After I Go Out This Door, I May Only Exist In The Minds Of All My Acquaintances…i May Be An Orange Peel.

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

People Never Notice Anything.

Most Stuff That Is Genuine Is Better Left Unsaid.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

It’s History. It’s Poetry.

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

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

I Ignored The Flashes Of Lightning All Around Me. They Either Had Your Number On Them Or They Didn't.

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

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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!

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.

I Was Surrounded By Phonies...they Were Coming In The Goddam Window.

Holden Caulfield

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

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.

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

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 Can’t Explain What I Mean. And Even If I Could, I’m Not Sure I’d Feel Like It.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

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.

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.

Sleep Tight, Ya Morons!

Zooey Said... It Would Be Very Nice To Come Home And Be In The Wrong House. To Eat Dinner With The Wrong People By Mistake, Sleep In The Wrong Bed By Mistake, And Kiss Everybody Good-bye In The Morning Thinking They Were Your Own Family.

Each Of His Phrases Was Rather Like A Little Ancient Island, Inundated By A Miniature Sea Of Whiskey.

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

Do It For The Fat Lady!

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'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 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.

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

Who Wants Flowers When Youre Dead? Nobody.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

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

The Sentence Im Reading Is Terrific.

But I'm Crazy. I Swear To God I Am.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I Privately Say To You, Old Friend... Please Accept From Me This Unpretentious Bouquet Of Early-blooming Parentheses: (((()))).

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.

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

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.

Did You See More Glass?

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

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

All Mothers Are Slightly Insane.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Love You To Pieces, Distraction, Etc.

I Never Seem To Have Anything That If I Lost It I'd Care Too Much About.

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.

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.

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

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.

Get Your Dirty Stinking Moron Knees Off My Chest.

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

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.

Some Game. If You Get On The Side Where All The Hot-shots Are, Then It's A Game, All Right - I'll Admit That. But If You Get On The Other Side, Where There Aren't Any Hot-shots, Then What's A Game About It? Nothing. No Game.

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

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.

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