J. D. Salinger

“So long, crumb-bum.”

“I mean he was mostly a Year Book kind of handsome guy.”

“Meant-to-be-picked-up books. Permanently-left-behind books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with books. But books, books.”

“Act, Zachary Martin Glass, when and where you want to, since you feel you must, but do it with all your might.”

“Nobody'd 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 on 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.”

“He's like everybody else in television. And Hollywood. And Broadway. He thinks everything sentimental is tender, everything brutal is a slice of realism and that everything that runs into physical violence is a legitimate climax to something that isn't even-”

“„— Млъквай, моля те! — писна Франи. — Ей сега, ей сегичка. Не спираш да говориш за егото. Господи, самият Христос е нужен, за да реши кое е его и кое не е. Тази вселена е Божия, приятелче, а не твоя и той има последната дума по въпроса кое е его и кое не е. Ами твоят любим Епиктет? Или пък любимата ти Емили Дикинсън? Да не искаш твоята любима Емили всеки път, когато у нея напира вдъхновение да напише стих, да клекне и да почне да се моли, докато гадното егоистично вдъхновение й мине? Не, разбира се, изобщо не го искаш! Но пък ти се иска на твоя любим приятел професор Тъпър да му отнемат егото. Това е друго. И може би е така. Може би. Само че недей да пищиш за егото по принцип. По мое мнение, ако държиш да знаеш, половината гадости в света ги забъркват хора, които не проявяват истинското си его. Вземи например твоя професор Тъпър. Поне съдейки по твоите думи, главата си залагам, че това, което той използва, това, което ти мислиш за негово его, изобщо не е неговото его, ами е някаква много по-мръсна, непървична способност. Боже мой, достатъчно дълго си се мотала из разни училища, за да знаеш за какво става въпрос. Позачопли някой некадърен даскал, пък ако щеш и университетски преподавател, и поне в половината от случаите отдолу ще се покаже някой попаднал не на мястото си първокласен автомонтьор или каменоделец, да му се не види. Вземи например Льосаж — моя приятел, моя работодател, моето Украшение на Медисън авеню. Да не мислиш, че неговото его го е вкарало в телевизията? Как пък не! Той вече няма его, ако изобщо е имал някога. Разцепил го е на хобита. На мен са ми известни поне три негови хобита - и всичко до едно са свързани с огромната работилница в мазето му на стойност десет хиляди долара, тъпкана с машини, менгемета и Господ знае какво още. Никой от тия, които наистина влагат егото си, истинското си его, няма време за проклети хобита.”

“Some guys spend days looking for something they lost. I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much.”

“I also say "Boy" a lot. Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and some times I act like I'm about thirteen. It's really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair.”

“There is no comparison between us. What Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external. He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to see. He looks at the things he ought to look at, and neglects those that need not be looked at. So clever a judge of horses is Kao, that he has it in him to judge something better than horses.”

“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 quite 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. I spent the whole night necking with a terrible phony named Anne Louise Sherman. Sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't.”

“Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?”

“Ama onlar beni de Booper'ı da -kız kardeşim- böyle sevmiyorlar. Yani olduğumuz gibi sevemiyorlar. Bizi birazcık değiştirmezlerse sevemiyorlar. Bizi sevme nedenlerini neredeyse bizi sevdikleri kadar,hatta çoğu zaman bizden daha fazla seviyorlar. Herkes diğerini sevdiği ölçüde, onu sevme nedenini seviyor, hatta çoğu zaman bu nedeni daha da çok seviyor. O zaman pek iyi olmuyor.”

“La gente batte sempre le mani per le cose sbagliate.”

“I swear to you, you're missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only. To endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness. Not to set up some little cozy, holier-than-thou trysting place with some sticky, adorable divine personage who'll take you in his arms and relieve you of all your duties and make all your nasty Weltschmerzen and Professor Tuppers go away and never come back. And by God, if you have intelligence enough to see that — and you do — and yet you refuse to see it, then you're misusing the prayer, you're using it to ask for a world full of dolls and saints and no Professor Tuppers.”

“I can't see why anybody — unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim — would even want to say a prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls — but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that — but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.”

“Ve, isin kotu tarafi da, bohem takildiginda ya da bunun gibi bir cilginlik yaptiginda, sen de herkes kadar duzene ayak uydurmus oluyorsun, sadece bicim farki var.”

“Dunyada hos seyler de var -hakikaten hos seyler yani. Hepsini birden iskalayacak kadar da salagiz biz. Olup biten her seyi hemen o sefil kucuk egolarimiza gonderiyoruz mutemadiyen.”

“I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.”

“The color of his pallor, however, was a curiously basic white - unmixed, that is, with the greens and yellows of guilt or abject contrition. It was very like the standard bloodlessness in the face of a small boy who loves animals to distraction, all animals, and who has just seen his favourite, bunny-loving sister's expression as she opened the box containing his birthday present to her - a freshly caught young cobra, with a red ribbon tied in an awkward bow around its neck.”

“Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly”

“You keep records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them. If you want to Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education, it’s history.”

“How long should a man's legs be? Long enough to touch the ground.”

“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion. Never. I'm a little over-excited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? ... I'm so sure you'll get asked only two questions.' Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. If only you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won't even underline that. It's too important to be underlined.”

“That killed me.”

“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rule."Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."Game, my ass. 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.”

“But what I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes.”

“There isn’t a nightclub in the world that you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out.”

“Mothers are all slightly insane.”

“It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.”

“Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

“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.”