Top 500 J.D. Salinger Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “I get lonesome up there,” I told him. “I picked a lousy profession. If I ever write a novel I think I’ll join a choir or something and run to meetings between chapters.”

— J.D. Salinger

152. “A confessional passage has probably never been written that didn’t stink a little bit of the writer’s pride in having given up his pride.”

— J.D. Salinger

153. “I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while – just once in a while – there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn’t, it’s just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word ‘wisdom’ mentioned!”

— J.D. Salinger

154. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”

— J.D. Salinger

155. “La vida es una partida, muchacho. La vida es una partida que uno juega de acuerdo con las reglas.”

— J.D. Salinger

156. “But it wasn’t just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair.”

— J.D. Salinger

157. “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.”

— J.D. Salinger

158. “I don’t want to scare you,” he said, “but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause.”

— J.D. Salinger

159. “I don’t even know what I was running for – I guess I just felt like it.”

— J.D. Salinger

160. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.”

— J.D. Salinger

161. “I think that one of these days,” he said, “you’re going to have to find out where you want to go. And then you’ve got to start going there.”

— J.D. Salinger

162. “That’s the whole trouble. When you’re feeling very depressed, you can’t even think.”

— J.D. Salinger

163. “How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire.”

— J.D. Salinger

164. “I knew it wasn’t too important, but it made me sad anyway.”

— J.D. Salinger

165. “Anyway I just got your beautiful letter and I love you to pieces, distraction, etc.”

— J.D. Salinger

166. “I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.”

— J.D. Salinger

167. “People never think anything is anything really. I’m getting goddam sick of it.”

— J.D. Salinger

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

— J.D. Salinger

169. “People always think something’s all true. I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am, I really do. But people never notice. People never notice anything.”

— J.D. Salinger

170. “Some of my best friedns are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children.”

— J.D. Salinger

171. “And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.”

— J.D. Salinger

172. “I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”

— J.D. Salinger

173. “Nothing in the voice of the cicada intimates how soon it will die.”

— J.D. Salinger

174. “She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.”

— J.D. Salinger

175. “I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I’d care too much about.”

— J.D. Salinger

176. “It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.”

— J.D. Salinger

177. “She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the light bulbs.”

— J.D. Salinger

178. “This sentence I’m reading is terrific.” I can be quite sarcastic when I’m in the mood. He didn’t get It, though.”

— J.D. Salinger

179. “If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did.”

— J.D. Salinger

180. “I hate saying corny things like “traveling incognito.” But when I’m with somebody that’s corny, I always act corny too.”

— J.D. Salinger

181. “God, I wish you could have been there.”

— J.D. Salinger

182. “The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has – I’m not kidding.”

— J.D. Salinger

183. “Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes.”

— J.D. Salinger

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

— J.D. Salinger

185. “He calls me Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948.”

— J.D. Salinger

186. “I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do.”

— J.D. Salinger

187. “What I think is, you’re supposed to leave somebody alone if he’s at least being interesting and he’s getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice.”

— J.D. Salinger

188. “It isn’t very serious, I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.”

— J.D. Salinger

189. “I got up and went over and looked out the window. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.”

— J.D. Salinger

190. “I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth.”

— J.D. Salinger

191. “Soon the Laughing Man has amassed the largest personal fortune in the world. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local monastery- humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising German police dogs.”

— J.D. Salinger

192. “Yes, I have an ulcer, for Chrissake. This is Kaliyuga, buddy, the Iron Age. Anybody over sixteen without an ulcer’s a goddam spy.”

— J.D. Salinger

193. “You don’t always have to get too sexy to get to know a girl.”

— J.D. Salinger

194. “Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I getstarted, I can go for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours.”

— J.D. Salinger

195. “If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, that poor bastard.”

— J.D. Salinger

196. “Finally, though, I’d leave the room without even taking a sock at him. I’d probably go down to the can and sneak a cigarette and watch myself getting tough in the mirror. Anyway, that’s what I thought about the whole way back to the hotel. It’s no fun to be yellow. Maybe I’m not all yellow. I don’t know. i think maybe I’m just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn’t give much of a damn if they lose their gloves.”

— J.D. Salinger

197. “And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It’s partly true, but it isn’t all true. People always think something’s all true. I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometime when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older like I am – I really do – but people never notice it. People never notice anything.”

— J.D. Salinger

198. “Oh, I don’t know. That digression business got on my nerves. I don’t know. The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It’s more interesting and all.”

— J.D. Salinger

199. “Anyway, I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it. I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.”

— J.D. Salinger

200. “You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he’s a real hot-shot, and they’re always asking you to do them a big favor. Just because they’re crazy about themself, they think you’re crazy about them, too, and that you’re just dying to do them a favor. It’s sort of funny, in a way.”

— J.D. Salinger