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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
Puddles
Explain
Sure
Feel
Feels
Mean
Even
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More quotes by J. D. Salinger

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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. Salinger
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She worries over the way her love for me comes and goes, appears and disappears. She doubts its reality simply because it isn't as steadily pleasurable as a kitten. God knows it is sad. The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on earth.
J. D. Salinger
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You know, I'm the only one in this family who has no problems, . . . And you know why? Because any time I'm feeling blue, or puzzled , what I do, I just invite a few people to come visit me in the bathroom, and--well, we iron things out together, that's all.
J. D. Salinger
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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.
J. D. Salinger
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It was just terrible! And the worst part was, I knew what a bore I was being, I knew how I was depressing people, or even hurting their feelings- but I just couldn't stop! I just could not stop picking!
J. D. Salinger
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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.
J. D. Salinger
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We don't talk, we hold forth. We don't converse, we expound.
J. D. Salinger
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I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn't a hell of a lot he can do about it.
J. D. Salinger
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Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—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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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.
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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Let's just try to have a marvelous time this weekend. I mean not try to analyze everything to death for once, if possible. Especially me. I love you.
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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People are always ruining things for you.
J. D. Salinger
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I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
J. D. Salinger
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I'd swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet.
J. D. Salinger
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My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. he was left handed. The thing that was descriptive about it though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat
J. D. Salinger
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Who in the Bible besides Jesus knew--knew--that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?
J. D. Salinger
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I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake--especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all.
J. D. Salinger
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People never notice anything.
J. D. Salinger