The Catcher In The Rye Quotes

“That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Lawyers are alright, I guess — but it doesn't appeal to me", I said. "I mean they're alright if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides, even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn't.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“How old are you? I asked her.
"Old enough to know better." she said.”
― J.D. Salinger , The Catcher in the Rye

“That’s what I liked about those nuns. You could tell, for one thing, that they never went anywhere swanky for lunch. It mad me so damn sad when I thought about it, their never going anywhere swanky for lunch or anything. I knew it wasn’t too important, but it made me sad anyway.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I'd be the catcher in the rye and all.”
― J.D. Salinger

“It was against my principles and all, but I was feeling so depressed I didn't even think. That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I wasn't sleepy or anything, but I was feeling sort of lousy. Depressed and all. I almost wished I was dead.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I didn't care what kind of a job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“When she was done whispering in the mike and being cute as hell, they'd sing a song half in English and half in French and drive all the phonies in the place mad with joy.”
― J.D. Salinger

“One of the biggest reasons I left Elkton Hills was because I was surrounded by phonies. That's all. They were coming in the goddam window. For instance, they had this headmaster, Mr. Haas, that was the phoniest bastard I ever met in my life. Ten times worse than old Thurmer. On Sundays, for instance, old Haas went around shaking hands with everybody's parents when they drove up to school. He'd be charming as hell and all. Except if some boy had little old funny-looking parents. You should've seen the way he did with my roommate's parents. I mean if a boy's mother was sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody's father was one of those guys that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old Haas would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents. I can't stand that stuff. It drives me crazy. It makes me so depressed I go crazy. I hated that goddam Elkton Hills”
― J.D. Salinger

“How'd she happen to mention me? Does she do to B.M. now? She said she might go there. she said she might go to Shipley, too. I thought she went to Shipley. how'd she happen to mention me?"

- Personally after reading chapters 1-5 and learning about Jane and Holden's relationship as friends or just to people you can tell that obviously he does truly care about this girl. To make situations between Holden and Stradlater I see jealousy come with in the mix when a date between "Strad" and jane come up to holden during one of there normal horsing around moods”
― J.D. Salinger

“He told us we should always pray to God- talk to Him and all- wherever we were. He told us to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If he was so goddam stupid not to realize it was Saturday night and everybody was out or asleep or home for the week end, I wasn't going to break my neck telling him.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Catholics are always trying to find out if you’re Catholic.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“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’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all”
― J. D. Salinger

“You would’ve puked. They went mad. They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn’t funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I’d hate it. I wouldn’t even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddam closet.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I’m always saying “Glad to’ve met you” to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I know he’s dead! Don’t you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can’t I? Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake—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

“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. 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. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I’m not trying to tell you,” he said, “that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It’s not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they’re brilliant and creative to begin with—which, unfortunately, is rarely the case—tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a “passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And—most important—nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“He was about the touchiest guy I ever met. Everything you said made him sore.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I’m not kidding.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would’ve done it, too, if I’d been sure somebody’d cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn’t want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“But Catholics are always trying to find out if you’re a Catholic even if they don’t know your last name.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Must we pursue this horrible trend of thought?”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“It’s funny. You take adults, they look lousy when they’re asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don’t.
Kids look all right. They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I mean how do you know what you’re “going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don’t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“He put my goddam paper down then and looked at me like he’d just beaten hell out of me in ping-pong or something. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for reading me that crap out loud. I wouldn’t’ve read it out loud to him if he’d written it - I really wouldn’t. In the first place, I’d only written that damn note so that he wouldn’t feel too bad about flunking me.”
― JD Salinger