Quote11

Writer

This fall I think you're riding for—it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people...Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me. Other things, too. Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand. Oh God, if I'm anything by a clinical name, I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

Certainty - Colors - Human - Kindness - Marking - Permanence - Suspicion

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

Listen," he said. "If you was a fish, Mother Nature'd take care of you, wouldn't she? Right? You don't think them fish just die when it gets to be winter, do ya?" No, but--" You're goddam right they don't

Death

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

Sickness

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

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.

Children - Feelings - Kindness - Parenting - Parents - Wants

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they're only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

Some people you shouldn't kid, even if they deserve it.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

But if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroes, and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm.

Boy - Contempt - Heroism - Man - Talk - Warmth

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

If sentiment doesn't ultimately make fibbers of some people, their natural abominable memories almost certainly will.

Lie - Memory

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I was surrounded by phonies...They were coming in the goddam window.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact.

Making

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet.

Pianist - Playing

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

If I were God, I certainly wouldn't want people to love me sentimentally. It's too unreliable.

Wants

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

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.

Boredom - Feelings - Hurting - Marriage

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.

Wants

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I live alone (but catless, I'd like everybody to know).

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy.

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J. D. Salinger

Writer

Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

Game

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