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I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.

J. D. Salinger

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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
Even
Like
Puddles
Explain
Sure
Feel
Feels
Mean

More quotes by J. D. Salinger

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I'm aware that many of my friends will be saddened and shocked, or shock-saddened, over some of the chapters in 'The Catcher In the Rye.' Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all my best friends are children. It's almost unbearable for me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach.
J. D. Salinger
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Life is a gift horse in my opinion.
J. D. Salinger
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She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.
J. D. Salinger
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One day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of.
J. D. Salinger
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They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more. It's not so good, that way.
J. D. Salinger
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That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any.
J. D. Salinger
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Happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.
J. D. Salinger
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There isn't anyone anywhere who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
J. D. Salinger
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The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.
J. D. Salinger
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Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.
J. D. Salinger
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I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.
J. D. Salinger
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I don't know about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody most of them, and maybe they're all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.
J. D. Salinger
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Some of my best friedns are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children.
J. D. Salinger
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The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.
J. D. Salinger
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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.
J. D. Salinger
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That's something that annoys the hell out of me-I mean if somebody says the coffee's all ready and it isn't.
J. D. Salinger
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I'm beginning to feel that no author has the right to tear his characters apart if he doesn't know how, or feel that he knows how (poor sucker) to put them together again. I'm tired—my God, so tired—of leaving them all broken on the page with just 'The End' written underneath.
J. D. Salinger
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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.
J. D. Salinger
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Oh, it's lovely to see you!' Franny said as the cab moved off. 'I've missed you.' The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn't mean them at all.
J. D. Salinger
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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