Holden Quotes

“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot. ”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“People are always ruining things for you.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“People never notice anything.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. 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, The Catcher in the Rye

“If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not as good any more.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Sleep tight, ya morons!”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“She was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. 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, The Catcher in the Rye

“It's not too bad when the sun's out, but the sun only comes out when it feels like coming out.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I don't even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it.”
― J.D. Salinger , The Catcher in the Rye

“I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“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, The Catcher in the Rye

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.”
― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“People never think anything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Every time you mention some guy that's strictly a bastard— very mean, or very conceited and all— and when you mention it to the girl, she'll tell you he has an inferiority complex. Maybe he has, but that still doesn't keep him from being a bastard, in my opinion.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them-especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“When the weather's nice, my parents go out quite frequently and stick a bunch of flowers on old Allie's grave. I went with them a couple of times, but I cut it out. In the first place, I don't enjoy seeing him in that crazy cemetery. Surrounded by dead guys and tombstones and all. It wasn't too bad when the sun was out, but twice—twice—we were there when it started to rain. It was awful. It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place. All the visitors that were visiting the cemetery started running like hell over to their cars. That's what nearly drove me crazy. All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner—everybody except Allie. I couldn't stand it. I know it's only his body and all that's in the cemetery, and his soul's in Heaven and all that crap, but I couldn't stand it anyway. I just wished he wasn't there.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye