Background Image

...

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.

-J. D. Salinger

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Is A Marvelous

J. D. Salinger

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From J. D. Salinger

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

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

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.

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.

Sentimentality Is Loving Something More Than God Does.

Loving Something

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

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

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.

Hell Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

Inability To Love

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

Money Always Ends Up Making You Blue.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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

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.

I Love To Write And I Assure You I Write Regularly... But I Write For Myself, For My Own Pleasure. And I Want To Be Left Alone To Do It.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

Most Stuff That Is Genuine Is Better Left Unsaid.

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

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.

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

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

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.

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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'm Quite Illiterate, But I Read A Lot.

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

Did You See More Glass?

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 Have Scars On My Hands From Touching Certain People.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

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.

Bessie: 'why Don't You Get Married?' Zooey: 'i Like Riding In Trains Too Much. You Never Get To Sit Next To The Window Anymore When You're Married.

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

Enormous Quantities

If 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Are All Your Stars Shining?

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

People Never Notice Anything.

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?

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.

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

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

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

If A Body Catch A Body Coming Through The Rye.

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.

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

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.

Sleep Tight, Ya Morons!

The Sentence Im Reading Is Terrific.

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.

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.

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

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

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

It’s History. It’s Poetry.

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.

Your Heart, Bessie, Is An Autumn Garage.

Happiness Is A Solid And Joy Is A Liquid.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

I’ll Read My Books And I’ll Drink Coffee And I’ll Listen To Music, And I’ll Bolt The Door.

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

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?

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

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

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!

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 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

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

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.

God, I Wish You Could Have Been There.

Could Have Been

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

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

I'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

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

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

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

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.

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

People Never Believe You.

Where Do The Ducks Go In The Winter?

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

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.

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

If Somebody At Least Listens It Not Too Bad

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

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

Exclamation Points

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

That's Something That Annoys The Hell Out Of Me-i Mean If Somebody Says The Coffee's All Ready And It Isn't.

Get Your Dirty Stinking Moron Knees Off My Chest.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Who Wants Flowers When Youre Dead? Nobody.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 Could Happily Lie Down And Die Sometimes.

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.

There Are Still A Few Men Who Love Desperately.

Know Your True Measurements And Dress Your Mind Accordingly

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.

She Wasn't Doing A Thing That I Could See, Except Standing There Leaning On The Balcony Railing, Holding The Universe Together.

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.

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

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.

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

Trending Author

Steve Prefontaine

William Shatner

Category