J. D. Salinger Quotes - Page 12

Quotes about:

• Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes.

  J. D. Salinger

  Girl, Sorry, Real

  J.D. Salinger (1951). “The Catcher in the Rye”

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Wall, Book, Exaggeration Is

  6 Copy quote

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

  J. D. Salinger

  Brain, Littles, Tiny

  J.D. Salinger (1951). “The Catcher in the Rye”

  10 Copy quote

• Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat.

  J. D. Salinger

  Guy, Toilet Seat, Toilets

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  War, Swear To God, Volunteer

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Mean, Talking, Helping

  J.D. Salinger (1951). “The Catcher in the Rye”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Girl, Sex, Pain

  'The Catcher in the Rye' (1951) ch. 9

  4 Copy quote

• But doctors talk about cells as if they had such unlimited importance all by themselves. As if they didn't really belong to the person that has them." Teddy brushed back his hair from his forehead with one hand. "I grew my own body," he said. "Nobody else did it for me. So if I grew it, I must have known how to grow it. Unconsciously, at least. I may have lost the conscious knowledge of how to grow it sometime in the last few hundred thousand years, but the knowledge is still there, because—obviously—I've used it.

  J. D. Salinger

  Doctors, Hair, Cells

  5 Copy quote

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

  J. D. Salinger

  Sex, Mind, Saws

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Eye, Kissing, Noses

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, People, Alive

  4 Copy quote

• People never believe you.

  J. D. Salinger

  Believe, People, Literature

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Thinking, Doing You, World

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Book, Teaching, Reading

  "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction". Book by J. D. Salinger, 1963.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Reality, Voice, Worry

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Interesting, Nerves, Trouble

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  4 Copy quote

• It’s history. It’s poetry.

  J. D. Salinger

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Sexy, Strong Women, Mean

  J.D. Salinger (1951). “The Catcher in the Rye”

  14 Copy quote

• Each of his phrases was rather like a little ancient island, inundated by a miniature sea of whiskey.

  J. D. Salinger

  Islands, Sea, Phrases

  5 Copy quote

• You can't exist in this world with such strong likes and dislikes.

  J. D. Salinger

  Strong, Likes And Dislikes, World

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Morning, Mistake, Nice

  5 Copy quote

• She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that.

  J. D. Salinger

  Cities, Whole

  4 Copy quote

• There isn't anyone anywhere who 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

  Secret, Christ, Fats

  Franny and Zooey (1961). Ellipsis in the original.

  4 Copy quote

• There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.

  J. D. Salinger

  Fats

  "Franny and Zooey". Book by J. D. Salinger, 1961.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Crazy, Stupid, Mean

  "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger, (p. 19), 1961.

  4 Copy quote

Page 12 of 14

First

← Prev

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin