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
death hope flower
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?
running hope crazy
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.
fed lousy mean scared unless
Did you ever get fed up? I said. “I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something?
Yes. That's it. That's the document. Where did you get it?
hell instead saying
Why the hell don'tcha, instead of keep saying it?
funny memorable missing
Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
mean scared feds
Did you ever get fed up?' I said. 'I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something?
point reached saying sure totally
We have now reached the point where we are totally sure what we are saying is true.
people plotting suspect
I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
bad care hanging hate leave leaving left mean places sad schools trying
What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by, or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.
government russians unless
We don't want to get the Russians involved, but unless the U.S. government cooperates, we may have to.
ends
Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.
appears happening thats
To you everything thats happening in the world appears phony, to be something other than what it really is, right?
designed environment fall falling hear himself hit horrible keeps looking man men permitted riding special supply time
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.