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I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.

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
Thinking
Till
Answer
Stupid
Question
Answers
Mean
Going
Think
Swear

More quotes by J. D. Salinger

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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
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I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do
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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It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world.
J. D. Salinger
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I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.
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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Do it for the fat lady!
J. D. Salinger
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Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.
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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The world is full of actors pretending to be human
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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Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.
J. D. Salinger
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I privately say to you, old friend... please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses: (((()))).
J. D. Salinger
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Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.
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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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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Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)
J. D. Salinger
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She wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points and inaccurate observations.
J. D. Salinger
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Sleep tight, ya morons!
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