Background Image

...

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

-J. D. Salinger

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

His Icebergs Are Strange

J. D. Salinger

...

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

Views: 6

Topic

More From J. D. Salinger

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.

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

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.

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

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

Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

You Take A Really Sleepy Man, Esmé, And He Always Stands A Chance Of Again Becoming A Man With All His Fac — With All His F-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s Intact.

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

There Is A Marvelous Peace In Not Publishing. It's Peaceful. Still. Publishing Is A Terrible Invasion Of My Privacy. I Like To Write. I Live To Write. But I Write Just For Myself And My Own Pleasure. I Don't Necessarily Intend To Publish Posthumously, But I Do Like To Write For Myself. I Pay For This Kind Of Attitude. I'm Known As A Strange, Aloof Kind Of Man. But All I'm Doing Is Trying To Protect Myself And My Work.

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

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

Holden Caulfield

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

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.

I Love You To Pieces, Distraction, Etc.

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

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’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 Scars On My Hands From Touching Certain People.

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

Most Stuff That Is Genuine Is Better Left Unsaid.

You Take Somebody That Cries Their Goddam Eyes Out Over Phoney Stuff In The Movies, And Nine Times Out Of Ten They're Mean Bastards At Heart.

My Brother Allie Had This Left-handed Fielder's Mitt. He Was Left Handed. The Thing That Was Descriptive About It Though, Was That He Had Poems Written All Over The Fingers And The Pocket And Everywhere. In Green Ink. He Wrote Them On It So That He'd Have Something To Read When He Was In The Field And Nobody Was Up To Bat

Do It For The Fat Lady!

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.

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

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

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Get Your Dirty Stinking Moron Knees Off My Chest.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

Know Your True Measurements And Dress Your Mind Accordingly

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.

My God, There's Absolutely Nothing Tenth-rate About You, And Yet You're Up To Your Neck At This Minute In Tenth-rate Thinking.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

He Seemed Unaware Of The Messiness Of The Arrangement.

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

It Isn't Very Serious, I Have This Tiny Little Tumor On The Brain.

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.

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

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.

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

Sometimes I See Me Dead In The Rain.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

If Somebody At Least Listens It Not Too Bad

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.

Liberate Yourself From My Vice-like Grip!

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

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

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

Phooey, I Say, On All White-shoe College Boys Who Edit Their Campus Literary Magazines. Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

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.

Oh, It's Lovely To See You!' Franny Said As The Cab Moved Off. 'i've Missed You.' The Words Were No Sooner Out Than She Realized That She Didn't Mean Them At All.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

But I Do Say That Educated And Scholarly Men, If They’re Brilliant And Creative To Begin With—which, Unfortunately, Is Rarely The Case—tend To Leave Infinitely More Valuable Records Behind Them Than Men Do Who Are Merely Brilliant And Creative. They Tend To Express Themselves More Clearly, And They Usually Have A Passion For Following Their Thoughts Through To The End.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

All Mothers Are Slightly Insane.

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.

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.

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 Could Happily Lie Down And Die Sometimes.

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

Hell Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

Inability To Love

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Sentimentality Is Loving Something More Than God Does.

Loving Something

I Mean How Do You Know What You're Going To Do Till You Do It? The Answer Is, You Don't. I Think I Am, But How Do I Know? I Swear It's A Stupid Question.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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.

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

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.

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

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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

Happiness Is A Solid And Joy Is A Liquid.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Real Ugly Girls Have It Tough. I Feel So Sorry For Them Sometimes.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

Holden Caulfield

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

What I Think Is, You're Supposed To Leave Somebody Alone If He's At Least Being Interesting And He's Getting All Excited About Something. I Like It When Somebody Gets Excited About Something. It's Nice.

What Really Knocks Me Out Is A Book That, When You're All Done Reading It, You Wish The Author That Wrote It Was A Terrific Friend Of Yours And You Could Call Him Up On The Phone Whenever You Felt Like It. That Doesn't Happen Much, Though.

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.

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

Trending Author

Category