Nobody who’s really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies.
J. D. SALINGERThe mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
More J. D. Salinger Quotes
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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?
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How long should a man’s legs be? Long enough to touch the ground.
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I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.
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I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.
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A confessional passage has probably never been written that didn’t stink a little bit of the writer’s pride in having given up his pride.
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It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.
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I could happily lie down and die sometimes.
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It’s not too bad when the sun’s out, but the sun only comes out when it feels like coming out.
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Sentimentality is loving something more than God does.
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I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. Sometimes, I act a lot older than I am–I really do. But people never notice it. People never notice anything.
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People never notice anything.
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I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.
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If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she’s late? Nobody.
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I just hope that one day – preferably when we’re both blind drunk – we can talk about it.
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I’m up to my ears in unwritten words.
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I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.
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There are nice things in the world – and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked.
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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.
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People are always ruining things for you.
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The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.
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The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.
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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.
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He said you were the only one who was bitter about S’s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving.
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If you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.
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Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.
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The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I’m not kidding.
J. D. SALINGER