Quote

In the first place, you’re way off when you start railing at things and people instead of at yourself.

J. D. Salinger

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

J. D. Salinger
Age: 91 †
Born: 1919
Born: January 1
Died: 2010
Died: January 27
Author
Novelist
Writer
New York City
New York
Jerome David Salinger
Jerome Salinger
Way
Things
People
Railing
Instead
Start
Place
Firsts
First

More quotes by J. D. Salinger

Image
Why are you breaking down, incidentally? I mean if you’re able to go into a collapse with all your might, why can’t you use the same energy to stay well and busy?
J. D. Salinger
Image
... even the most sublimely accomplished non-stop talker can't consistently please.
J. D. Salinger
Image
Always, always, always referring every goddam thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.
J. D. Salinger
Image
I ignored the flashes of lightning all around me. They either had your number on them or they didn't.
J. D. Salinger
Image
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.
J. D. Salinger
Image
I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete - that's what scares me.
J. D. Salinger
Image
If sentiment doesn't ultimately make fibbers of some people, their natural abominable memories almost certainly will.
J. D. Salinger
Image
I thought the two ugly ones were sisters, but they got very insulted when I asked them. You could tell neither one of them wanted to look like the other one, and you couldn't blame them, but it was very amusing anyway.
J. D. Salinger
Image
You can't exist in this world with such strong likes and dislikes.
J. D. Salinger
Image
Do it for the fat lady!
J. D. Salinger
Image
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.
J. D. Salinger
Image
I kept picturing all these little kids in this big field of rye... If they're running and they don't look where they're going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.
J. D. Salinger
Image
There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.
J. D. Salinger
Image
Happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.
J. D. Salinger
Image
When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go. I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go.
J. D. Salinger
Image
But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me.
J. D. Salinger
Image
I mean most girls are so dumb and all. After you neck them for a while, you can really watch them losing their brains. You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains. -Holden Caulfield
J. D. Salinger
Image
I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.
J. D. Salinger
Image
Sentimentality is loving something more than God does.
J. D. Salinger
Image
What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.
J. D. Salinger