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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

-J. D. Salinger

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My Brother Allie Had

J. D. Salinger

...

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

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People Always Clap For The Wrong Reasons.

Rewards And Recognition

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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I'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

Are All Your Stars Shining?

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

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I Love You To Pieces, Distraction, Etc.

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

Sentimentality Is Loving Something More Than God Does.

Loving Something

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

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

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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.

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

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

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.

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

People Never Notice Anything.

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.

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

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

Existence Of God

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

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.

Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

While I Was Walking I Passed These Two Guys That Were Unloading This Big Christmas Tree Off A Truck. One Guy, Kept Saying To The Other Guy, 'hold The Sonunvabitch Up! Hold It Up, For Chrissake!' It Certainly Was A Gorgeous Way To Talk About A Christmas Tree.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Exclamation Points

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

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

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

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

Liberate Yourself From My Vice-like Grip!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I'm 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.

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

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.

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.

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

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

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

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