What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you c… - J. D. Salinger

If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable.

There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

Did you know, God damn it, that Les was all for bringing a tangerine in to you last night before he went to bed? My God. Even Bessie can't stand stories with tangerines in them. And God knows I can't. If you're going to go on with this breakdown business, I wish to hell you'd go back to college to have it. Where you're not the baby of the family. And where, God knows, nobody'll have any urges to bring you any tangerines. And where you don't keep your goddam tap shoes in the closet.