J.D. Salinger

When I really worry about something, I don´t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don´t go. I´m too worried to go. I don´t want to interrupt my worrying to go.

But I'm Crazy. I swear to God I am.

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.

This whole goddam house stinks of ghosts. I don__ mind so much being haunted by a dead ghost, but I resent like hell being haunted by a half-dead one.

Why's it so sunny?" she repeated.Zooey observed her rather narrowly. "I bring the sun wherever I go, buddy," he said.

John Keats / John Keats / John / Please put your scarf on.

Boy, it began to rain like a bastard. In buckets, I swear to God. All the parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel, so they wouldn't get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the bench for quite a while. I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way; but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though. 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. I don't know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could've been there.

I__ not too sure what the name of the song was that he was playing when I came in, but whatever it was, he was really stinking it up. He was putting all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and a lot of other very tricky stuff that gives me a pain in the ass. You should__e heard the crowd, though, when he was _ished. You would__e puked. They went mad. They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn__ funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes though I was terri_, I__ hate it. I wouldn__ even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I__ play it in the goddam closet. Anyway, when he was _ished, and everybody was clapping their heads off, old Ernie turned around on his stool and gave this very phony, humble bow. Like as if he was a helluva humble guy, besides being a terri_ piano player. It was very phony__ mean him being such a big snob and all. In a funny way, though, I felt sort of sorry for him when he was _ished. I don__ even think he knows any more when he__ playing right or not. It isn__ all his fault. I partly blame all those dopes that clap their heads off__hey__ foul up anybody, if you gave them a chance.

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.

is he crazy?" --Harcourt-Brace editor on Holden Caulfield

It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so _ I don't know _ not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and _ sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way.

Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. - Holden Caulfield

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That__ the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they__e not much to look at, or even if they__e sort of stupid, you fall half 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.

She was around ten minutes late, as a matter of fact. I didn't give a damn, though. All that crap they have in cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post and all, showing guys on street corners looking sore as hell because their dates are late - that's bunk. If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.

Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their legs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell girls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them... You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring.

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?

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.

I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.