J. D. Salinger - People Quotes

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I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
Then again you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.'

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

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
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
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
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
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.

J. D. Salinger
People never think anything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it.

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat.

J. D. Salinger
I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.

J. D. Salinger
"You love God, don't you?" Nicholson asked, with a little excess of quietness. "Isn't that your forte, so to speak? From what I heard on that tape and from what Al Babcock —"
"Yes, sure, I love Him. But I don't love Him sentimentally. He never said anybody had to love Him sentimentally," Teddy said. "If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable."

J. D. Salinger
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.

J. D. Salinger
The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs - if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do. They really do. It's one of the reasons why I roomed with a stupid bastard like Stradlater. At least his suitcases were as good as mine.

J. D. Salinger
If sentiment doesn't ultimately make fibbers of some people, their natural abominable memories almost certainly will.

J. D. Salinger
It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.

J. D. Salinger