J. D. Salinger Quotes - Page 7

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• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Suicide, Loneliness, Artist

  4 Copy quote

• Liberate yourself from my vice-like grip!

  J. D. Salinger

  Vices

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• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Girl, Moving, Thinking

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• It was the last game of the year and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didn't win.

  J. D. Salinger

  Education, Suicide, Winning

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

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• Franny was staring at the little blotch of sunshine with a special intensity, as if she were considering lying down in it.

  J. D. Salinger

  Lying, Sunshine, Special

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

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• I don't even like old cars. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

  J. D. Salinger

  Horse, Car, Literature

  Catcher in the Rye (1951) ch. 17

  60 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Gratitude, Children

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

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• Sometimes I see me dead in the rain.

  J. D. Salinger

  Rain, Sometimes

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

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• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Animal, Boys, Expression

  5 Copy quote

• I'm aware that many of my friends will be saddened and shocked, or shock-saddened, over some of the chapters in 'The Catcher In the Rye.' Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all my best friends are children. It's almost unbearable for me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach.

  J. D. Salinger

  Children, Book, My Best Friend

  "The Twentieth Century". Book by Caroline Farrar Ware, p. 429, 1972.

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• 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

  Girl, Noses, Arms

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

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• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Depressing, Mean, Boys

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

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• If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

  J. D. Salinger

  Truth, Childhood, Parent

  'The Catcher in the Rye' (1951) ch. 1

  7 Copy quote

• I used to think she was quite intelligent , in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about all those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not.

  J. D. Salinger

  Stupid, Intelligent, Thinking

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

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• But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me.

  J. D. Salinger

  Might, Accusation

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

  6 Copy quote

• For a psychoanalyst to be any good... he'd have to believe that it was through the grace of God that he'd been inspired to study psychoanalysis in the first place.

  J. D. Salinger

  Believe, Grace, Firsts

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

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• I thought what I'd do was I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

  J. D. Salinger

  Deaf, Mute

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

  13 Copy quote

• Lane himself lit a cigarette as the train pulled in. Then, like so many people, who, perhaps, ought to be issued only a very probational pass to meet trains, he tried to empty his face of all expression that might quite simply, perhaps even beautifully, reveal how he felt about the arriving person. Franny was among the first of the girls to get off the train, from a car at the far, northern end of the platform. Lane spotted her immediately, and despite whatever it was he was trying to do with his face, his arm that shot up into the air was the whole truth.

  J. D. Salinger

  Girl, Air, Expression

  4 Copy quote

• If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined.

  J. D. Salinger

  Believe, Writing, Heart

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• As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

  J. D. Salinger

  Love, Book, Artist

  "The Mistakes in This Essay Are My Own" by John Maxwell Hamilton, www.nytimes.com. April 15, 1990.

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• She's quite skinny, like me, but nice skinny. Roller-skate skinny. I watched her once from the window when she was crossing over Fifth Avenue to go to the park, and that's what she is, roller-skate skinny. You'd like her.

  J. D. Salinger

  Nice, Fifth Avenue, Parks

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

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• I know. I'm very hard to talk to. I realize that.

  J. D. Salinger

  Realizing, Knows, Hard

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

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• It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.

  J. D. Salinger

  Fun, Stuff, Sometimes

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

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• 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.

  J. D. Salinger

  Passion, Men, Creative

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

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• I was surrounded by phonies...They were coming in the goddam window.

  J. D. Salinger

  Window, Phony, Holden Caulfield

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