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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.

-J. D. Salinger

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The Color Of His

J. D. Salinger

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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.

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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.

Know Your True Measurements And Dress Your Mind Accordingly

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

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

The True Poet Has No Choice Of Material. The Material Plainly Chooses Him, Not He It.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Love You To Pieces, Distraction, Etc.

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.

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.

Who Wants Flowers When Youre Dead? Nobody.

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.

I Could Happily Lie Down And Die Sometimes.

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

Holden Caulfield

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

Happiness Is A Solid And Joy Is A Liquid.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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.

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'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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Have Scars On My Hands From Touching Certain People.

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.

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.

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

If A Body Catch A Body Coming Through The Rye.

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.

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

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

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?

Do It For The Fat Lady!

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.

You Can't Stop A Teacher When They Want To Do Something. They Just Do It.

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

Did You See More Glass?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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 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.

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

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 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.

Or You'd Just Passed By One Of Those Puddles In The Street With Gasoline Rainbows In Them. I Mean You'd Be Different In Some Way—i Can't Explain What I Mean. And Even If I Could, I'm Not Sure I'd Feel Like It.

I 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

All Mothers Are Slightly Insane.

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.

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

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

Are All Your Stars Shining?

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

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

Sometimes I See Me Dead In The Rain.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Exclamation Points

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

He Seemed Unaware Of The Messiness Of The Arrangement.

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.

People Never Believe You.

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

Hell Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

Inability To Love

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Where Do The Ducks Go In The Winter?

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.

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

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.

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 Was Surrounded By Jerks. I'm Not Kidding.

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

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

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

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.

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

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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

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.

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

I'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

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.

There Are Still A Few Men Who Love Desperately.

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.

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

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

People Never Notice Anything.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most Stuff That Is Genuine Is Better Left Unsaid.

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