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Writer Quotes by J.D. Salinger

8 Writer quotes by J.D. Salinger

All Writer quotes J.D. Salinger’s page

When you seek a reclusive author’s succinct take on authenticity, J.D. Salinger’s eight short quotations provide a quick, introspective glimpse into his minimalist style.

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“Writing a book is a horrible exhausting struggle; one would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some…

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“I'm the one flunking out of this goddam place, and you're asking me to write you a goddam composition.”

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“Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I getstarted, I can go for…

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“...What gets me about D.B., though, he hated the war so much, and yet he got me to read this book A…

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“I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.”

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“The rest, with very little exaggeration, was books. Meant-to-be-picked-up books. Permanently-left-behind books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with books. But books, books. Tall cases lined three walls…

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“She was always reading, and she read very good books.”

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“While the consequences are often quite hellish, I am absolutely and perhaps permanently against ignoring books recommended from the heart by very…

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“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…

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“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…

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“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.…

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“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was… The only thing that would be different would…

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“And you make people nervous, young man," she said - most equably, for her. "You either take to somebody or you don't. If you…

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“I still think that, in a way, I can't get past half my childhood dogmas.”

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“He stuck around till around dinnertime, talking about all the guys at Pencey that he hated their guts, and squeezing this big pimple on…

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“For example, when Seymour told one of the twins or Zooey or Franny or even Mme. Boo Boo (who was only two years younger…

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“One thing? One thing I like? Okay.”

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“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…

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“They're just people that write poems that get published and anthologized all over the place but they're not poets.”

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“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…

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“And I hate to tell you... but I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move…

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“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…

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“[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…

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