J. D. Salinger

There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy.

How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?

What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while. 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.

You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart.

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

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

I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

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.