J. D. Salinger Quotes

154 Sourced Quotes

Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how 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's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
There's no more to Holden Caulfield. Read the book again. It's all there. Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
He wanted to tell me that he thought he finally knew why Christ said to call no man Fool. Christ had said it, Seymour thought I'd want to know, because there are no fools. Dopes, yes — fools, no.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
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?

J. D. Salinger
Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
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!

J. D. Salinger
How do you know what you're going to do until you do it? The answer is, you don't. It's a stupid question.

J. D. Salinger
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

J. D. Salinger
I remember wanting to do something about that enormous-faced wristwatch she was wearing — perhaps suggest that she try wearing it around her waist.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.

J. D. Salinger
Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.

J. D. Salinger
"I see you are looking at my feet," he said to her when car was in motion.
"I beg your pardon?" said the woman.
"I said I see you're looking at my feet".
"I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.
"If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it."
"Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.
The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.
"I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man.

J. D. Salinger
It's one of those places that are supposed to be very sophisticated and all, and the phonies are coming in the window.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
But what I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. I mean you can't help it sometimes.

J. D. Salinger
It's nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father's farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle.

J. D. Salinger
Extremes, though, are always risky and ordinarily downright baneful, and the dangers of prolonged contact with any poetry that seems to exceed what we most familiarly know of the first-class are formidable.

J. D. Salinger
In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
Even the most sublimely accomplished non-stop talker can't consistently please.

J. D. Salinger
I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do

J. D. Salinger