Quotes by J.D. Salinger

When youre 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 youre dead? Nobody.

who wants flowers when youre dead? nobody.

Anyway, Im sort of glad theyve got the atomic bomb invented. If theres ever another war, Im going to sit right the hell on top of it. Ill volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving.

When the weathers nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allies grave. I went with them a couple of times, but I cut it out. In the first place, I dont enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery. Surrounded by dead guys and tombstones and all. It wasnt too bad when the sun was out, but twice—twice—we were there when it started to rain. It was awful. It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place. All the visitors that were visiting the cemetery started running like hell over to their cars. Thats what nearly drove me crazy. All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner—everybody except Allie. I couldnt stand it. I know its only his body and all thats in the cemetery, and his souls in Heaven and all that crap, but I couldnt stand it anyway. I just wished he wasnt there.

You know Sven? The man who takes care of the gym? he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, hed have a very, very bad nights sleep, because hes very fond of that dog. But when he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. Hed know it was only a dream.Nicholson nodded. Whats the point exactly?The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same thing. Only he wouldnt know it. I mean he wouldnt wake up till he died himself.

John Keats / John Keats / John / Please put your scarf on.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when youre all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesnt happen much, though.

Grand. Theres a word I really hate. Its a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

I think it should be done over, Buddy. …Please make peace with your wit. Its not going to go away, Buddy. To dump it on your own advice would be as bad and unnatural as dumping your adjectives and your adverbs because Prof. B. wants you to. What does he know about it? What do you really know about your own wit?Ive been sitting here tearing up notes to you. I keep starting to say things like This one is wonderfully constructed, and The conversation between the two cops is terrific. So Im hedging. Im not sure why. I started to get a little nervous right after you began to read. It sounded like the beginning of something your arch-enemy Bob B. calls a rattling good story. Dont you think he would call this a step in the right direction? Doesnt that worry you? Even what is funny about the woman on the back of the truck doesnt sound like something you think is funny. It sounds much more like something that you think is universally considered funny. I feel gypped. Does that make you mad? You can say our relatedness spoils my judgement. It worries me enough. But Im also just a reader. Are you a writer or just a writer of rattling good stories. I mind getting a rattling good story from you.

Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?

You cant stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

I didnt want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck.

The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — Im not kidding.

I know more damn perverts, at schools and all, than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around.

I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the

God bless ladies with costly, tasteful clothes and touching, dirty fingernails that champion gifted, foreign poets and decorate the library in beautiful, melancholy fashion! My God, this universe is nothing to snicker at!

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

I am always saying Glad tove met you to somebody Im not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasnt doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.