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
crazy swear-to-god swear
But I'm Crazy. I swear to God I am.
sarcastic sarcasm mood
I can be quite sarcastic when I'm in the mood.
depressing mean boys
Boy, did he depress me! I don't mean he was a bad guy- he wasn't. But you don't have to be bad guy to depress somebody- you can be a good guy and do it.
laughing might wells
Listen, if you're not going to be a nun or something, you might as well laugh.
sea islands phrases
Each of his phrases was rather like a little ancient island, inundated by a miniature sea of whiskey.
strong likes-and-dislikes world
You can't exist in this world with such strong likes and dislikes.
memories names desire
How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire
army nazi said
He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.
phones hands joy
For joy, apparently, it was all Franny could do to hold the phone, even with both hands.
men records trouble
Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.
sleep bed
I’m not going to bed after all. Somebody around here hath murdered sleep. Good for him.
believe responsibility writing
You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.
girl moving thinking
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.
thinking world doing-you
There's a marvelous peace in not publishing, there's a stillness. When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don't publish, they don't know what you're doing. You can keep it for yourself.