An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.
J. D. SALINGERI’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.
More J. D. Salinger Quotes
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People are mostly hot to have a discussion when you’re not.
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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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The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I’m not kidding.
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She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.
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I don’t even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it.
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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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I have scars on my hands from touching certain people…Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me.
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You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
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Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.
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I love to write and I assure you I write regularly. But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.
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I can be quite sarcastic when I’m in the mood.
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Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They’re always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.
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The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.
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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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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.
J. D. SALINGER