“Surely, he was all real things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience, our… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“They're not. That's partly what's so awful. I mean they're not real poets. They're just people that write poems that get published… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“They're just people that write poems that get published and anthologized all over the place but they're not poets.” — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“God bless ladies with costly, tasteful clothes and touching, dirty fingernails that champion gifted, foreign poets and decorate the library in beautiful,… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“She's an irritating, opinionated woman, a type Buddy can't stand. I don't think he could see her for what she is. A… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“I know this much, is all," Franny said. "If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to leave… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“What about your beloved Epictetus? Or your beloved Emily Dickinson? You want your Emily, every time she has an urge to write… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“He said he ate his food out of our big refrigerators, drove our eight-cylinder American cars, un-hesitatingly used our medicines when he… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“Christ, it's embarrassing--I start thinking about this goddam poem I sent her when we first started goin' around together. 'Rose my color… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“Teddy looked at him directly for the first time. Are you a poet?' he asked. A poet?' Nicholson said. 'Lord, no. Alas,… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“He didn't disagree with me, but he seemed to feel that I have a perfection complex of some kind. Much talk from… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“She's an irritating, opinionated woman- a type Buddy can't stand. I don't think he could see her for what she is. A… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“I know this much, is all, “ Franny said. “ If you’re a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean, you’re supposed… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“…he is invariably a kind of super-size but unmistakably ‘classical’ neurotic, an aberrant who only occasionally, and never deeply, wishes to surrender… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“It seems to me indisputably true that a good many people, the wide world over, of varying ages, cultures, natural endowments, respond… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share Image
“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all… I'm standing on the edge of… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“I felt like praying or something, when I was in bed, but I couldn't do it. I can't always pray when I feel like… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page and everything.… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was… The only thing that would be different would… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“And you make people nervous, young man," she said - most equably, for her. "You either take to somebody or you don't. If you… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“I still think that, in a way, I can't get past half my childhood dogmas.” — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“He stuck around till around dinnertime, talking about all the guys at Pencey that he hated their guts, and squeezing this big pimple on… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny or even Mme. Boo Boo (who was only two years younger… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“The cigars are ballast, sweetheart. Sheer ballast. If he didn’t have a cigar to hold on to, his feet would leave the ground. We’d… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“They're just people that write poems that get published and anthologized all over the place but they're not poets.” — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“In certain Zen monasteries, it's a cardinal rule, if not the only serious enforced discipline, that when one monk calls out 'Hi!' to another… — j.d. salinger Copy Share
“And I hate to tell you... but I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“Hi,' he said. He always said it like he was terrifically bored or terrifically tired. He didn't want you to think he was visiting… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
“[Y]ou’re someone who took up birds in the first place because they fired your imagination; they fascinated you because ‘they seemed of all created… — J.D. Salinger Copy Share
