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.
J. D. SALINGERDo 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.
More J. D. Salinger Quotes
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I’m one of the little foxes that spoil the grapes.
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I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.
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I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
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Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.
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Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.
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Where do the ducks go in the winter?
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People are always ruining things for you.
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An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.
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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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You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.
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You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.
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You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
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Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.
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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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You think of the book you’d most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.
J. D. SALINGER