J. D. Salinger Quotes - Page 3

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

How long should a man's legs be? Long enough to touch the ground.

The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.

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

Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.

Listen, if you're not going to be a nun or something, you might as well laugh.

She was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

Mothers are all slightly insane.

That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any.

I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do

We don't talk, we hold forth. We don't converse, we expound.

I don't even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it.

Don't hate me because I can't remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else.

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

I can be quite sarcastic when I'm in the mood.

probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. how well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. she was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that

I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.

Sometimes you get tired of riding in taxicabs the same way you get tired riding in elevators. All of a sudden, you have to walk, no matter how far or how high up.

I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.

Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.

I could happily lie down and die sometimes.

Boy, when you're 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 you're dead?