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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.

-J. D. Salinger

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We’re Freaks, That’s All.

J. D. Salinger

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Have Scars On My Hands From Touching Certain People.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Just Never Felt So Fantastically Rocky In My Entire Life.

Your Heart, Bessie, Is An Autumn Garage.

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 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.

A Confessional Passage Has Probably Never Been Written That Didn't Stink A Little Bit Of The Writer's Pride In Having Given Up His Pride.

The World Is Full Of Actors Pretending To Be Human

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

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

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.

All Mothers Are Slightly Insane.

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

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.

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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.

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

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

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?

Happiness Is A Solid And Joy Is A Liquid.

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.

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

Exclamation Points

God, I Wish You Could Have Been There.

Could Have Been

I Used To Think She Was Quite Intelligent , In My Stupidity. The Reason I Did Was Because She Knew Quite A Lot About The Theater And Plays And Literature And All That Stuff. If Somebody Knows Quite A Lot About All Those Things, It Takes You Quite A While To Find Out Whether They're Really Stupid Or Not.

I 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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

She's Quite Intelligent, In My Stupidity.

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

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

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

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

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The Sentence Im Reading Is Terrific.

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.

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

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Sometimes I See Me Dead In The Rain.

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

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

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

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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.

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

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

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

I'm The Most Terrific Liar You Ever Saw In Your Life. It's Awful. If I'm On My Way To The Store To Buy A Magazine, Even, And Somebody Asks Me Where I'm Going, I'm Liable To Say I'm Going To The Opera. It's Terrible.

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.

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.

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It’s History. It’s Poetry.

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Do You Know What I Was Smiling At? You Wrote Down That You Were A Writer By Profession. It Sounded To Me Like The Loveliest Euphemism I Had Ever Heard. When Was Writing Ever Your Profession? It's Never Been Anything But Your Religion.

I’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.

Where Do The Ducks Go In The Winter?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

People Never Notice Anything.

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

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.

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

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

Liberate Yourself From My Vice-like Grip!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Do It For The Fat Lady!

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

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

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

Most Stuff That Is Genuine Is Better Left Unsaid.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

When I Really Worry About Something, I Don’t Just Fool Around. I Even Have To Go To The Bathroom When I Worry About Something. Only, I Don’t Go. I’m Too Worried To Go. I Don’t Want To Interrupt My Worrying To Go.

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Sentimentality Is Loving Something More Than God Does.

Loving Something

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 Terrible Part. I Swear To God I'm A Madman.

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.

If Somebody At Least Listens It Not Too Bad

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

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

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.

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 Love You To Pieces, Distraction, Etc.

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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 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.

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

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

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

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

Then The Carousel Started, And I Watched Her Go Round And Round...all The Kids Tried To Grap For The Gold Ring, And So Was Old Phoebe, And I Was Sort Of Afraid She's Fall Off The Goddam Horse, But I Didn't Say Or Do Anything. The Thing With Kids Is, If They Want To Grab For The Gold Ring, You Have To Let Them Do It, And Not Say Anything. If They Fall Off, They Fall Off, But It Is Bad To Say Anything To Them.

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.

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

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.

I Could Happily Lie Down And Die Sometimes.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

One Day A Long Time From Now You'll Cease To Care Anymore Whom You Please Or What Anybody Has To Say About You. That's When You'll Finally Produce The Work You're Capable Of.

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.

If You Can't, Or Won't, Think Of Seymour, Then You Go Right Ahead And Call In Some Ignorant Psychoanalyst. You Just Do That. You Just Call In Some Analyst Who's Experienced In Adjusting People To The Joys Of Television, And Life Magazine Every Wednesday, And European Travel, And The H-bomb, And Presidential Elections, And The Front Page Of The Times, And God Knows What Else That's Gloriously Normal.

Money Always Ends Up Making You Blue.

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

How That Name Comes Up. Mixing Memory And Desire

But Don't Tell Me I'm Not Sensitive To Beauty. That's My Achilles' Heel, And Don't You Forget It. To Me, Everything Is Beautiful. Show Me A Pink Sunset And I'm Limp, By God.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

If A Body Catch A Body Coming Through The Rye.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

People Never Believe You.

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

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

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.

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.

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Talcott Parsons

George Gershwin

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