Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. – J. D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye. Chapter 26, closing words of book. Holden regrets having shared his story.
I’m known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I’m doing is trying to protect myself and my work. – J. D. Salinger
I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect. – J. D. Salinger
It was a very stupid thing to do, I’ll admit, but I hardly didn’t even know I was doing it. – J. D. Salinger
You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart. – J. D. Salinger
An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s. – J. D. Salinger
There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It’s peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. – J. D. Salinger
They didn’t act like people and they didn’t act like actors. It’s hard to explain. They acted more like they knew they were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good. – J. D. Salinger
Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs. – J. D. Salinger
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
Some stories, my property, have been stolen. Someone’s appropriated them. It’s an illicit act. It’s unfair. Suppose you had a coat you liked, and somebody went into your closet and stole it. That’s how I feel. – J. D. Salinger
I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty… you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. – J. D. Salinger
He had a theory, Walt did, that the religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world. – J. D. Salinger
