“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.”

Nobody who’s really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies.

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.

I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.

Why’s it so sunny? she repeated. Zooey observed her rather narrowly. I bring the sun wherever I go, buddy, he said.

That’s something that annoys the hell out of me-I mean if somebody says the coffee’s all ready and it isn’t.

People never notice anything.

Where do the ducks go in the winter?

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.

You think of the book you’d most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.

I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.

I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

You don’t know how to talk to people you don’t like. Don’t love, really. You can’t live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

I could happily lie down and die sometimes.

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

I meant every word I said. And I hate that it would mean so much to me, to know that I cross your mind occasionally.

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

I’m a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires.

I had always been the theater nerd at Northwestern University. I knew I wanted to do acting, but I hated the idea of being this cliche – a girl from L.A. who decides to be an actress.

When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘You’re either going to love yourself or hate yourself.’ And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.

I hate violence, yes I do. It’s kind of a dilemma, huh?.

Most of the world is like a mental hospital. Some persons are sick with jealousy, others with anger, hatred, passion. They are victims of their habits and emotions. But you can make your home a place of peace.

Oh, let us lose our milk teeth and cut instead the strong teeth of hate and love.