J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salingerwas an American writer who won acclaim early in life. He led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth1 January 1919
CountryUnited States of America
jesus stupid heaven
Who in the Bible besides Jesus knew--knew--that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?
goodbye sleep saying-goodbye
Sleep tight, ya morons!
girl men cities
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
believe grace firsts
For a psychoanalyst to be any good... he'd have to believe that it was through the grace of God that he'd been inspired to study psychoanalysis in the first place.
crazy lying swear-to-god
I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to God I am.
distance ideas suits-you
Something else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it will begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. What’ll fit and, maybe, what it won’t. After a while, you’ll have an idea what kind of thoughts your mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that won’t suit you, aren’t becoming to you. You’ll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.
nice rain world
It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world.
girl giving looks
If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.
memorable intelligent hair
But it wasn't just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair.
weather emotion poet
Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.
stupid mean thinking
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.
happiness smart make-you-happy
I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy.
running holden felt
I don't even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it.
war book hero
But if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroes, and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm.