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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.

-J. D. Salinger

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You Know Sven? The

J. D. Salinger

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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.

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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.

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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

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

Where Do The Ducks Go In The Winter?

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

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

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?

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!

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.

It’s History. It’s Poetry.

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

Exclamation Points

His Icebergs Are Strange Monuments With A Symbol Embodied In Their Form And Their Colours. They Do Not Freeze You When You Look At Them, For They Are Not Of Ice, They Are What Lawren Harris Feels And Thinks After He Has Contemplated Them

I 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.

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

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

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

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

All Morons Hate It When You Call Them A Moron.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

How That Name Comes Up. Mixing Memory And Desire

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

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.

Sleep Tight, Ya Morons!

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

People Always Clap For The Wrong Reasons.

Rewards And Recognition

Get Your Dirty Stinking Moron Knees Off My Chest.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

But Guilt Is Guilt. It Doesn't Go Away. It Can't Be Nullified. It Can't Even Be Fully Understood, I'm Certain - It's Roots Run Too Deep Into Private And Long-standing Karma. About The Only Thing That Saves My Neck When I Get To Feeling This Way Is That Guilt Is An Imperfect Form Of Knowledge. Just Because It Isn't Perfect Doesn't Mean That It Can't Be Used. The Hard Thing To Do Is To Put It To Practical Use, Before It Gets Around To Paralyzing You.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Most Stuff That Is Genuine Is Better Left Unsaid.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

Are All Your Stars Shining?

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

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.

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.

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

Sometimes I See Me Dead In The Rain.

If Somebody At Least Listens It Not Too Bad

Money Always Ends Up Making You Blue.

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

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.

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

Existence Of God

Do It For The Fat Lady!

Hell Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

Inability To Love

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.

Poets Are Always Taking The Weather So Personally.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

The Room Was Not Impressively Large, Even By Manhattan Apartment-house Standards, But Its Accumulated Furnishings Might Have Lent A Snug Appearance To A Banquet Hall In Valhalla.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Don't Know What Good It Is To Know So Much And Be Smart As Whips And All If It Doesn't Make You Happy.

Know Your True Measurements And Dress Your Mind Accordingly

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

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

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.

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

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.

She Was Not One For Emptying Her Face Of Expression.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

People Are Always Ruining Things For You.

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.

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.

He Seemed Unaware Of The Messiness Of The Arrangement.

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.

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

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

People Never Notice Anything.

Who Wants Flowers When Youre Dead? Nobody.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

Happiness Is A Solid And Joy Is A Liquid.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

The Sentence Im Reading Is Terrific.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Holden Caulfield

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Mothers Are All Slightly Insane.

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

Life Is A Gift Horse In My Opinion.

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

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.

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'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

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.

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

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

Holden Caulfield

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

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'm Up To My Ears In Unwritten Words.

People Never Believe You.

Liberate Yourself From My Vice-like Grip!

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.

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.

Give Me An Honest Con Man Any Day.

But Where Does By Far The Bulk, The Whole Ambulance Load, Of Pain Really Come From? Where Must It Come From? Isn't The True Poet Or Painter A Seer? Isn't He, Actually, The Only Seer We Have On Earth? Most Apparently Not The Scientist, Most Emphatically Not The Psychiatrist.

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.

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.

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.

All Mothers Are Slightly Insane.

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 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 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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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