Top 500 J.D. Salinger Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Fiction Quotes, Book Quotes, Coffee Quotes

2. “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. I know it’s crazy.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Crazy Quotes

3. “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Reading Quotes

4. “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Growing Up Quotes, Quotes About Growing Up

5. “I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.”

— J.D. Salinger

6. “I’m up to my ears in unwritten words.”

— J.D. Salinger

7. “The world is full of actors pretending to be human.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Quotes About Actors

8. “I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.”

— J.D. Salinger

9. “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

10. “The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.”

— J.D. Salinger

11. “You think of the book you’d most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

12. “I thought what I’d do was I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.”

— J.D. Salinger

13. “Where do the ducks go in the winter?”

— J.D. Salinger

14. “I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.”

— J.D. Salinger

15. “One day a long time from now you’ll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That’s when you’ll finally produce the work you’re capable of.”

— J.D. Salinger

16. “Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.”

— J.D. Salinger

17. “You can’t exist in this world with such strong likes and dislikes.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Strong Quotes

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

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

19. “But I’m Crazy. I swear to God I am.”

— J.D. Salinger

20. “Give me a story that just makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

21. “I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”

— J.D. Salinger

22. “I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

— J.D. Salinger

23. “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

24. “Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first one who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

25. “I know. I’m very hard to talk to. I realize that.”

— J.D. Salinger

26. “I have so much I want to tell you, and nowhere to begin.”

— J.D. Salinger

27. “I just hope that one day – preferably when we’re both blind drunk – we can talk about it.”

— J.D. Salinger

28. “In my mind, I’m probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.”

— J.D. Salinger

29. “Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.”

— J.D. Salinger

30. “An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.”

— J.D. Salinger

31. “If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good any more.”

— J.D. Salinger

32. “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.”

— J.D. Salinger

33. “It’s partly true, too, but it isn’t all true. People always think something’s all true.”

— J.D. Salinger

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

— J.D. Salinger

35. “Sometimes you get tired of riding in taxicabs the same way you get tired riding in elevators. All of a sudden, you have to walk, no matter how far or how high up.”

— J.D. Salinger

36. “I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice.”

— J.D. Salinger

37. “All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

— J.D. Salinger

38. “You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.”

— J.D. Salinger

39. “That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.”

— J.D. Salinger

40. “I am 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

41. “You don’t know how to talk to people you don’t like. Don’t love, really. You can’t live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.”

— J.D. Salinger

Featured in: Strong Quotes

42. “Happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.”

— J.D. Salinger

43. “I can be quite sarcastic when I’m in the mood.”

— J.D. Salinger

44. “Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They’re always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.”

— J.D. Salinger

45. “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”

— J.D. Salinger

46. “Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row.”

— J.D. Salinger

47. “If you weren’t around, I’d probably be someplace way the hell off. In the woods or some goddamn place. You’re the only reason I’m around, practically.”

— J.D. Salinger

48. “Mothers are all slightly insane.”

— J.D. Salinger

49. “People are always ruining things for you.”

— J.D. Salinger

50. “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