J. D. Salinger Quotes

I love you to pieces, distraction, etc.

This fall I think you're riding for — it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. 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. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.

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.

Sleep tight, ya morons!

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

Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row.

I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music and I'll bolt the door.

I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do - but people never notice it. People never notice anything.

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people…Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me.

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.

You don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rule."

Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right-I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game."

Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.

That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.