An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.
J. D. SALINGERHe 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.
More J. D. Salinger Quotes
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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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We are, all four of us, blood relatives, and we speak a kind of esoteric, family language, a sort of semantic geometry in which the shortest distance between any two points is a fullish circle.
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The 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.
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You think of the book you’d most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.
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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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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’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.
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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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The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.
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She was not one for emptying her face of expression.
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I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.
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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.
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And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.
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People never notice anything.
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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.
J. D. SALINGER