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Jerome David Salinger: 166 quotes22 likes

“Franny has the measles, for one thing. Incidentally, did you hear her last week? She went on at beautiful length about how she used to fly all around the apartment when she was four and no one was home. The new announcer is worse than Grant — if possible, even worse than Sullivan in the old days. He said she surely dreamt that she was able to fly. The baby stood her ground like an angel. She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the lightbulbs.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

“It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don't know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Franny (1955)

“Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has - I'm not kidding.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 1

“I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 10

“Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 18

“Marriage partners are to serve each other. Elevate, help, teach, strengthen each other, but above all, serve. Raise their children honorably, lovingly and with detachment. A child is a guest in the house, to be loved and respected — never possessed, since he belongs to God. How wonderful, how sane, how beautifully difficult, and therefore true. The joy of responsibility for the first time in my life.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

“How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back "What?"”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

“I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)

“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 could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 3

“"You know Adam?" Teddy asked him."Do I know who?""Adam. In the Bible."Nicholson smiled. "Not personally," he said dryly.”

Jerome David Salinger book Nine Stories

Nine Stories (1953), Teddy (1953)

“What is it but a low form of prayer when he or Les or anybody else God-damns everything? I can't believe God recognizes any form of blasphemy. It's a prissy word invented by the clergy.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)

“When you don't see Jesus for exactly what he was, you miss the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. If you don't understand Jesus, you can't understand his prayer — you don't get the prayer at all, you just get some kind of organized cant. Jesus was a supreme adept, by God, on a terribly important mission.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)

“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Mr. Spencer
Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 2

“Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Source: Franny and Zooey (1961), Franny (1955), p. 30

“Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 17

“I'm just interested in finding out what the hell goes. I mean do you have to be a goddam bohemian type, or dead, for Chrissake, to be a real poet? What do you want — some bastard with wavy hair?”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Source: Franny and Zooey (1961), Franny (1955), p. 19

“The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs - if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do. They really do. It's one of the reasons why I roomed with a stupid bastard like Stradlater. At least his suitcases were as good as mine.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 15

“Everybody's a nun.”

Jerome David Salinger book Nine Stories

Nine Stories (1953), De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period (1952)

“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)