J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salingerwas an American writer who won acclaim early in life. He led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth1 January 1919
CountryUnited States of America
nice needs reason
I don't really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of the writers he loves, but it's always nice, I'll grant you, if he has one.
ego finals buddy
This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't.
hate thinking hands
He was one of those guys that think they're being a pansy if they don't break around forty of your fingers when they shake hands with you. God I hate that stuff.
zoos new-york home
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.
girl horse fun
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.
hate long world
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.
old-friends bouquets blooming
I privately say to you, old friend... please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses: (((()))).
scarves please
John Keats / John Keats / John / Please put your scarf on.
vices
Liberate yourself from my vice-like grip!
twelve sawyer toms
The Great Gatsby' [...] was my 'Tom Sawyer' when I was twelve [....]
usual horror seats
And the old horror of being a professional writer, and the usual stench of words that goes with it, is begining to drive me out of my seat. (Buddy)
dark doubt cards
The cards are stacked (quite properly, I imagine) against all professional aesthetes, and no doubt we all deserve the dark, wordy, academic deaths we all sooner or later die.
suicide loneliness artist
However contradictory the coroner's report — whether he pronounces Consumption or Loneliness or Suicide to be the cause of death — isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies? I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience.
way reason
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.