Quotes by J.D. Salinger

If you cant, or wont, think of Seymour, then you go right ahead and call in some ignorant psychoanalyst. You just do that. You just call in some analyst whos experienced in adjusting people to the joys of television, and Life magazine every Wednesday, and European travel, and the H-bomb, and Presidential elections, and the front page of the Times, and God knows what else thats gloriously normal.

God almighty, Franny, he said. If youre going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidis grandfather all wrapped up in one. Keep him in mind if you say it, and him only, and him as he was and not as youd like him to have been.

I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall. . . . The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. . . . So they gave up looking.

It was lousy in the park. It wasnt too cold, but the sun still wasnt out, and there didnt look like there was anything in the park except dog crap and globs of spit and cigar butts from old men, and the benches all looked like theyd be wet if you sat down on them. It made you depressed, and every once in a while, for no reason, you got goose flesh while you walked. It didnt seem at all like Christmas was coming soon. It didnt seem like anything was coming.

When it became clear that nothing of the kind was forthcoming, I took more direct action. I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness. - De Daumier-Smiths Blue Period (1952)

I purely came over because I thought you looked extremely lonely. You have an extremely sensitive face.

You dont know how to talk to people you dont like. Dont love, really. You cant live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

The one that sang, old Janine, was always whispering into the g***** microphone before she sang. Shed say, And now we like to geeve you our impression of Vooly Voo Fransay. Eet ees the story of leetle Fransh girl who comes to a beeg ceety, just like New York, and falls een love wees a leetle boy from Brookleen. We hope you like eet. Then, when she was all done whispering and being cute as hell, shed sing some dopey song, half in English and half in French, and drive all the phonies in the place mad with joy.

Her sample drawings were clipped, rather subordinately, to her photograph. All of them were arresting. One of them was unforgettable. The unforgettable one was done in florid wash colors, with a caption that read: Forgive Them Their Trespasses. It showed three small boys fishing in an odd-looking body of water, one of their jackets draped over a No Fishing! sign. The tallest boy, in the foreground of the picture, appeared to have rickets in one leg and elephantiasis in the other--an effect, it was clear, that Miss Kramer had deliberately used to show that the boy was standing with his feet slightly apart.

This whole goddamn house stinks of ghosts.

I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell- I dont know why exactly.

... I was feeling so depressed I didnt even think. Thats the whole trouble. When youre feeling very depressed, you cant even think

Were freaks, the two of us, Franny and I. Im a twenty-five-year-old freak and shes a twenty-one-year-old freak, and both those bastards are responsible. I swear to you, I could murder them both without batting an eyelash. The great teachers. The great emancipators. My God. I cant even sit down to lunch with a man any more and hold up my end of a decent conversation. I either get so bored or so goddamn preachy that if the son of a bitch had any sense, hed break his chair over my head

People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily,...,and he had very red hair.

Im no goddam animal. I may be a stupid, fouled-up twentieth-century son of a bitch, but Im no animal. Dont gimme that. Im no animal.

She gave me a pain in the ass, but she was very good looking.

Ive never seen such a bunch of apple-eaters.

Ive read this same sentence about twenty times since you came in.Anybody else except Ackley wouldve taken the goddamn hint. Not him though...What the hellya reading?Goddamn book.He shoved my book back with his hand so that he could see the name on it. Any good? he said.This sentence Im reading is terrific.

Im not trying to tell you, he said, that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. Its not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if theyre 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. And — most important—nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker.

Im not trying to tell you, he said, that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. Its not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if theyre 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. And--most important—nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker.