J. D. Salinger Quotes

154 Sourced Quotes

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.

J. D. Salinger
Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules. - Mr. Spencer

J. D. Salinger
Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

J. D. Salinger
Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

J. D. Salinger
I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.

J. D. Salinger
You can't stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

J. D. Salinger
I like to ride in trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married.

J. D. Salinger
It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

J. D. Salinger
For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that 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.

J. D. Salinger
He said I was unequipped to meet life because I had no sense of humor.

J. D. Salinger
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 to them.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
I feel overwhelmingly grateful to them, but I don't know what to do with their invisible gifts.

J. D. Salinger
Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
When you don't see Jesus for exactly what he was, you miss the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. If you don't understand Jesus, you can't understand his prayer — you don't get the prayer at all, you just get some kind of organized cant. Jesus was a supreme adept, by God, on a terribly important mission.

J. D. Salinger
It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it.

J. D. Salinger
It isn't very serious, I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
I don't even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do.

J. D. Salinger